Issue Summary

Customers are unable to retrieve or update the description of certain work types in Jira Cloud via the REST API when the work type shares its name with a Jira-provided issue type introduced by Atlassian. This issue occurs specifically when we are attempting to update the same name as an existing customer-defined issue type, resulting in the customer’s configuration being overridden by the Jira-provided translation. This behaviour disrupts automation processes and impacts customers who have previously named their issue types identically to new Jira-provided types.

Steps to Reproduce

1. As an example, use the Jira Cloud REST API to update the description of a work type (e.g., "Request") using the The Jira Cloud platform REST API:

        curl --request PUT \  --url 'https://<your-instance>.atlassian.net/rest/api/3/issuetype/10000' \  --user 'email@example.com:<api_token>' \  --header 'Accept: application/json' \  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \  --data '{ "avatarId": 1, "description": "Updated description", "name": "name" }'

2. Observe the "description" field in the API response:

{  "self": "https://<your-instance>.atlassian.net/rest/api/3/issuetype/10000",  "id": "10000",  "description": "A collection of related bugs, stories, and tasks.",  "iconUrl": "https://rachelleg.atlassian.net/images/icons/issuetypes/epic.svg",  "name": "Epic",  "untranslatedName": "Epic",  "subtask": false,  "hierarchyLevel": 1 }

• The API returns a success response, but the "description" field in the response and in subsequent GET requests remains unchanged (e.g., "A collection of related bugs, stories, and tasks.") instead of reflecting the updated value.

3. While the API response does not reflect the updated description, the UI may display the correct description.

Note that this issue only occurs for issue types that share a name with a Jira-provided issue type introduced by Atlassian (e.g., "Request"). Other custom issue types update as expected.

Expected Results

• The description field for the work type (e.g., "Request") should reflect the value set, both in the UI and via the REST API.
• User-defined issue types should not be overridden by Jira-provided issue types with the same name.

Actual Results

• The description field for Work Type remains set to the Jira-provided default (e.g., "A collection of related bugs, stories, and tasks.") regardless of updates made via the REST API.
• This behaviour only affects issue types that share a name with a Jira-provided issue type; other custom issue types behave as expected.

Workaround

If you rename the work (issue) type to something other than the Jira-provided name (e.g., changing "Request" to a unique name), the API and UI will function as expected, and the description can be updated and retrieved normally.