Sales Execution

Resources

Read bulk-operations/SKILL.md first — this skill assumes its batching, pipe, and dry-run patterns.

The two non-obvious rules

1. Activities are invisible until associated. hubspot objects create --type calls ... alone produces a record nobody can see in the CRM UI. Always follow with hubspot associations create --from calls:<id> --to contacts:<id> (and the deal, if relevant) before stopping.

2. Timestamps differ between write and read.

Current Unix ms: $(date +%s)000 (macOS) or $(date +%s%3N) (Linux). activities list rows are {"id","type","timestamp","lastModified","title","body","status","owner_id"} — the cross-type timeline read shape, no raw property names.

Create + associate, by type

# CALL
call_id=$(hubspot objects create --type calls \
  --property hs_call_title="Discovery call" \
  --property hs_call_body="Confirmed $50K budget, Q2 timeline." \
  --property hs_call_direction=OUTBOUND \
  --property hs_call_status=COMPLETED \
  --property hs_call_duration=1800000 \
  --property hs_timestamp=$(date +%s)000 \
  --format json | jq -r '.id')
hubspot associations create --from calls:$call_id --to contacts:149
hubspot associations create --from calls:$call_id --to deals:456

# NOTE
note_id=$(hubspot objects create --type notes \
  --property hs_note_body="Sent proposal. Follow-up Friday." \
  --property hs_timestamp=$(date +%s)000 \
  --format json | jq -r '.id')
hubspot associations create --from notes:$note_id --to deals:456

# MEETING — start/end in Unix ms; reuse start as hs_timestamp
start=$(date +%s)000; end=$(( ${start%000} + 3600 ))000
meeting_id=$(hubspot objects create --type meetings \
  --property hs_meeting_title="Demo — Acme" --property hs_meeting_outcome=COMPLETED \
  --property hs_meeting_start_time=$start --property hs_meeting_end_time=$end \
  --property hs_timestamp=$start --format json | jq -r '.id')
hubspot associations create --from meetings:$meeting_id --to contacts:149

# TASK — hs_timestamp is the DUE DATE, not creation time
due=$(( $(date -v+7d +%s) * 1000 ))   # macOS; Linux: date -d '7 days' +%s
task_id=$(hubspot objects create --type tasks \
  --property hs_task_subject="Confirm proposal received" \
  --property hs_task_priority=HIGH \
  --property hs_task_status=NOT_STARTED \
  --property hs_task_type=CALL \
  --property hs_timestamp=$due \
  --format json | jq -r '.id')
hubspot associations create --from tasks:$task_id --to deals:456

Open tasks for a contact — two CLI calls, no xargs

associations list emits {"id": …} per row (plus label/associationType fields); objects get reads from stdin in one batch call (see bulk-operations/SKILL.md "Read in batch").

hubspot associations list --from contacts:149 --to tasks \
| hubspot objects get --type tasks \
    --properties hs_task_subject,hs_task_status,hs_task_priority,hs_timestamp \
| jq -c 'select(.properties.hs_task_status != "COMPLETED")'

Open tasks portal-wide — exclude statuses server-side with @!=

@!= is NOT_IN: one condition for the whole excluded list. Do not spend one --filter flag per excluded status — the search API caps a request at 5 filter groups, 6 conditions per group, and 18 conditions total.

@!= matches only records that have the property, so replicating a real HubSpot task view's "status is none of … or is empty" needs two groups (OR'd), with the shared conditions repeated in each:

hubspot objects search --type tasks \
  --filter "hubspot_owner_id=123 AND hs_task_status@!=COMPLETED,DEFERRED" \
  --filter "hubspot_owner_id=123 AND !hs_task_status" \
  --properties hs_task_subject,hs_task_status,hs_task_priority,hs_timestamp

Inverse (only these statuses) is @= (IN): --filter "hs_task_status@=NOT_STARTED,IN_PROGRESS,WAITING".

Bulk: follow-up task per deal in a stage

The deal ID and the task ID must travel together. Persist the deal payload to a file, create tasks (output order matches input order — see bulk-operations), then zip the two ID lists line-by-line and stream association pairs in one call.

due=$(( $(date -v+7d +%s) * 1000 ))

# 1. Per-deal payload, deal_id retained alongside the create payload.
hubspot objects search --type deals --filter "dealstage=appointmentscheduled" \
  --properties dealname \
| jq -c --argjson due "$due" '{deal_id: .id, payload: {properties: {
    hs_task_subject: ("Follow up: " + .properties.dealname),
    hs_task_priority: "HIGH", hs_task_status: "NOT_STARTED", hs_task_type: "CALL",
    hs_timestamp: ($due|tostring)
  }}}' > /tmp/deal_tasks.jsonl

# 2. Create tasks; one CLI call for the whole batch.
jq -c '.payload' /tmp/deal_tasks.jsonl \
| hubspot objects create --type tasks > /tmp/created_tasks.jsonl

# 3. Zip and stream association pairs through stdin.
paste \
  <(jq -r '.deal_id' /tmp/deal_tasks.jsonl) \
  <(jq -r '.id'      /tmp/created_tasks.jsonl) \
| jq -Rc 'split("\t") | {from:("tasks:"+.[1]), to:("deals:"+.[0])}' \
| hubspot associations create

These are objects create calls (Additive) — creates are never digest-gated, so --dry-run is a plain preview and you execute by dropping it (no digest/confirm). The digest flow only applies to the irreversible writes (update/upsert/delete/merge) in bulk-operations/SKILL.md.

Known constraints

Activities must be associated immediately or they're invisible in the CRM UI. For enum option values on activity properties, run hubspot properties options-list --type calls <property> (and for call outcomes, hubspot activities calls dispositions list); the reference is the shortcut. Sales Hub sequences are read-only in the CLI (hubspot sequences list / get / enrollments, automation.sequences.read scope) — the CLI cannot enroll a contact in a sequence, so drive outreach via tasks/activities above. This surface grows; recheck hubspot --help / CHANGELOG.md before assuming an API is missing.