$ sbot publish '{"about": "@pubkey=.ed25519", "description": "Ich bin ein Bornholmer", "type": "about"}'

Come to think about it, I believe you can also do:

$ sbot publish --about "$PUBKEY" --description "$DESCRIPTION" --type about

Well, the first one made nodejs go in its pants

Can you be more specific? I use that syntax all the time (except I use sbotc, not sbot, because the former is much faster).

the second went through, but it isn't reflecting.

Perhaps somebody else knows whether that syntax is still supported.

What's not to love about nodejs?

You could downgrade?

$ sbot version
"13.0.3"

PS: Do you have a connections item in your [optional] ~/.ssb/config? Perhaps that's the missing part?

/cc #help

I mean on wherever you are trying to set a description.

$ jq .connections < .ssb/config

{
  "incoming": {
    "net": [
      {
        "external": [
          "ssb.bornmesh.dk"
        ],
        "host": "",
        "port": 8008,
        "scope": "public",
        "transform": "shs"
      }
    ],
    "unix": [
      {
        "scope": "local",
        "server": true,
        "transform": "noauth"
      }
    ]
  },
  "outgoing": {
    "net": [
      {
        "transform": "shs"
      }
    ]
  }
}