Quizzes

1. Writing a new quiz
   1. Attaching it to a lesson
2. Editing a quiz
   1. Quizzes Syncjar won’t write
3. Skipping unchanged quizzes
4. Options

---

pull writes every quiz to QUIZ_CONTENT_PATH as quiz-<quiz_id>.json (see Pulling). push:quizzes creates new quizzes from files and pushes edits to pulled ones.

syncjar push:quizzes --dry-run      # validate, and show what would change
syncjar push:quizzes                # make the changes, asking about each quiz

Writing a new quiz

Create a file named quiz-new-<anything>.json in the quiz directory. The easiest start is a copy of a pulled quiz with every "id" line deleted; the rest of a pulled file is accepted as it is. A minimal quiz:

{
  "name": "Sample: container basics check",
  "html": "<p>Three questions on the lesson you just read.</p>",
  "passing_percentage_correct": 70,
  "questions": [
    {
      "type": "MULTIPLE_CHOICE",
      "html": "<p>Which file lists an image's packages?</p>",
      "answers": [
        { "answer_text": "An SBOM", "correct": true },
        { "answer_text": "A Dockerfile", "correct": false }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Question type	Answers
MULTIPLE_CHOICE	Exactly one correct
MULTIPLE_ANSWER	One or more correct
FILL_IN_THE_BLANK	Every answer is accepted, so each is "correct": true
FREEFORM	None

Questions appear in the order they’re listed.

Every new quiz file is checked before anything is created, and one that fails stops the run. Unknown fields are errors: Skilljar silently ignores fields it doesn’t recognise, so a typo would otherwise lose a setting without telling you.

Each new quiz is read back after it’s created and compared with the file. If anything differs, or a request fails, the half-made quiz is deleted. On success, the draft is replaced by the pulled form, quiz-<id>.json. A quiz whose name already exists in Skilljar is refused, since that usually means an earlier run created it; --allow-duplicate-name overrides that.

Attaching it to a lesson

A new quiz isn’t attached to any lesson, so learners can’t see it yet. Add it to its lesson in Skilljar, or name the lesson when you create it:

syncjar push:quizzes --file quiz-new-sbom-basics.json --attach <lesson_id>

A lesson’s id is in its course’s lessons-meta.json. --attach only works with --file, so it’s always clear which quiz goes where.

Attaching can’t be undone through the API, because Skilljar’s API can’t remove a content item from a lesson. To detach a quiz, remove it in the Skilljar dashboard.

Editing a quiz

Edit a pulled quiz-<id>.json and run push:quizzes. It compares the file with Skilljar and shows each change before making it. Changes come in two kinds, and they matter differently to learners who have already taken the quiz:

Change	How it’s made	Learners who took the quiz
Quiz settings; a question’s text, type, feedback or grading flags	Edited in place	The question keeps its response history
A question’s answers or position; a new question anywhere but the end	That question is recreated, and so is every question after it	Those questions’ response history leaves the quiz analytics, and learners can no longer review their past answers. Scores and completions are kept.
Removing a question	Deleted	The same as above, for that question

Skilljar’s API can’t change answers or question order in place, and a new question always goes to the end. So keeping the file’s order means recreating everything after the first such change.

In-place edits are prompted, and --force skips those prompts. Anything that recreates or removes questions is all-or-nothing for that quiz. It needs an interactive yes, or --recreate <quiz_id> for that quiz, and --force never covers it. New questions are created before old ones are deleted, so a failure partway leaves extra questions, never missing ones. Every edit is read back and verified, and the file is rewritten with Skilljar’s new ids.

Quizzes Syncjar won’t write

Skilljar holds quizzes that these checks reject: feedback forms with LINEAR_SCALE questions, survey questions with no correct answer, quizzes with no description, empty “Untitled Quiz” shells. Left as pulled, they show up as warnings and never block a run. Once edited, a quiz that fails the checks is refused on its own and the rest of the run goes ahead.

So a quiz with a LINEAR_SCALE question can’t be pushed from Syncjar, even when the edit is to another question. Edit it in Skilljar.

Skipping unchanged quizzes

A quiz file that hasn’t changed since its last verified push is skipped without a request. The record is kept in .syncjar-quiz-state.json; deleting it only makes the next run slower. --full-scan compares every file.

Options

Option	Does
--dry-run	Validate and show what would change; write nothing
--file <name>	Only this quiz file
--attach <lesson_id>	Attach the new quiz in --file to this lesson
--force	Create quizzes and make in-place edits without asking
--recreate <quiz_id>	Allow recreating or removing questions in this quiz; repeatable
--full-scan	Compare every quiz file, including unchanged ones
--allow-duplicate-name	Create a quiz even if one with the same name exists
--allow-branch <name>	Also allow this branch of the content repository