pm update should support --note/--learning flags for appending notes and learnings to existing items #222

Description

Currently pm update does not support appending notes or learnings to existing items via dedicated flags. While pm notes --add and pm learnings --add exist as separate subcommands, there is no way to add notes/learnings through the pm update command, which is the natural mutation path for most workflows.

Current behavior

• pm notes <id> --add "text" works (separate subcommand)
• pm learnings <id> --add "text" works (separate subcommand)
• pm update <id> --note "text" or pm update <id> --learning "text" does NOT work
• pm update --allow-audit-update does not extend to notes/learnings (Issue Audit append workflows are split between update/comments/files despite allow-audit-update intent #207 covers this partially for comments)

Expected behavior

pm update <id> should support --note and --learning flags (analogous to the existing --comment flag) for appending notes and learnings to existing items. These should:

1. Accept the same text formats as pm notes --add and pm learnings --add
2. Support the --allow-audit-update / --allow-audit-note flags for non-owner mutations
3. Be consistent with the existing --comment flag behavior on pm update

Why this matters

The PM audit workflow (pm validate → fix issues) often requires appending notes and learnings to items during metadata backfill. Having to switch to a separate subcommand (pm notes / pm learnings) is:

1. Slower for batch operations
2. Inconsistent with the update-mutation pattern
3. Blocked by the --allow-audit-update flag not covering notes/learnings

Related issues

• Audit append workflows are split between update/comments/files despite allow-audit-update intent #207 (Audit append workflows are split between update/comments/files despite allow-audit-update intent)

Suggested implementation

Add --note and --learning options to the pm update command that behave identically to --comment:

• --note <value> - Append a note entry (text= CSV/markdown pairs or - for stdin; repeatable)
• --learning <value> - Append a learning entry (text= CSV/markdown pairs or - for stdin; repeatable)
• --clear-notes / --clear-learnings - Clear all notes/learnings (already exists per help output?)
• --allow-audit-note / --allow-audit-learning flags

Version

2026.6.12