It's all about the answers!

Ask a question

How can I use REST API to find work items that do not have a parent?


David Connolly (1111) | asked Jun 24 '16, 3:08 p.m.
I'm trying to use REST to find "orphaned" task work items - that is tasks that do not have a parent story or defect. There are two parts to the problem.

1) I tried adding a filter query on parent/id but it's not queryable. I also just tried "parent" but get "unsupported type name" error. Is there some other way that I can filter based on parent?

2) Assuming there is a way to filter on parent, there's a more general question: How do I use REST API to detect that a field is empty/null/not set?

One answer



permanent link
Donald Nong (14.5k614) | answered Jun 26 '16, 8:29 p.m.
I don't think you can test empty/null/nonexistence when using the REST API.

If you do not have to use the REST API, a simple work item query should suffice. Just set the condition to (Parent do not exist) & (Type is Task). If you need to do some post-processing using some kind of script, you can download the result set as a CSV file.

Your answer


Register or to post your answer.


Dashboards and work items are no longer publicly available, so some links may be invalid. We now provide similar information through other means. Learn more here.