Linear Issue Manager

Manage Linear issues, projects, and cycles with AI-powered triage, prioritization, and workflow automation. Use when you need to create issues from code changes, triage bug reports, plan sprints, analyze team velocity, or automate Linear workflows.

Prerequisites

• Linear API key (Settings → API → Personal API keys)
• LINEAR_API_KEY environment variable or pass directly

Usage

"Create a Linear issue for the auth bug we just found"
"Triage the unassigned issues in the Backend team"
"Show sprint velocity for the last 3 cycles"
"Plan next cycle based on backlog priorities"
"Find duplicate issues in the bug queue"
"Generate release notes from completed issues"

How It Works

1. Workspace Context

Query Linear's GraphQL API to understand the workspace:

curl -s -X POST https://api.linear.app/graphql \
  -H "Authorization: $LINEAR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query":"{ teams { nodes { id name key } } viewer { id name } }"}' | python3 -m json.tool

Map teams, projects, cycles, labels, and workflow states.

2. Issue Triage

For untriaged issues, the agent:

• Reads issue title and description
• Analyzes severity signals (crash, data loss, security, UX degradation)
• Suggests priority (Urgent/High/Medium/Low/No Priority)
• Recommends team assignment based on affected code area
• Identifies potential duplicates by semantic similarity
• Adds appropriate labels (bug, feature, improvement, tech-debt)

Triage criteria:

• P0 Urgent: Production down, data loss, security vulnerability
• P1 High: Feature broken for many users, regression
• P2 Medium: Feature partially broken, workaround exists
• P3 Low: Minor UX issue, enhancement request
• No Priority: Questions, discussions, nice-to-haves

3. Cycle Planning

Analyze team capacity and plan upcoming cycles:

• Calculate average velocity from last 3-5 cycles
• Assess current backlog by priority and estimate
• Recommend cycle scope based on capacity
• Flag risks: too many P0s, unestimated issues, blocked items
• Balance between new features, bug fixes, and tech debt

4. Issue Creation from Code

When the agent detects code issues, create Linear issues with:

• Descriptive title derived from the problem
• Code context (file, function, line numbers)
• Reproduction steps if applicable
• Suggested fix approach
• Appropriate labels and priority
• Link to relevant PR or commit

5. Velocity & Metrics

Generate team health reports:

• Cycle velocity: Points completed per cycle (trend line)
• Completion rate: % of planned work delivered
• Bug rate: New bugs per cycle vs fixed bugs
• Lead time: Issue created → issue completed average
• Cycle time: Work started → work completed average
• Scope creep: Items added mid-cycle

6. Duplicate Detection

Find and merge duplicate issues:

• Compare issue titles and descriptions semantically
• Check for issues referencing same code paths
• Identify similar bug reports from different reporters
• Suggest which issue to keep as primary
• Offer to close duplicates with cross-reference

7. Release Notes Generation

From completed cycle issues, generate:

• User-facing changelog grouped by category
• Internal release notes with technical details
• Migration notes for breaking changes
• Known issues and workarounds

Output

Triage Report

## Issue Triage — Backend Team (12 unassigned)

### 🔴 Urgent (2)
- AUTH-423: "Login fails with SSO for enterprise accounts"
  → Priority: Urgent | Label: bug, auth | Assign: @security-team
- API-891: "Rate limiter bypass via header injection"
  → Priority: Urgent | Label: security, bug | Assign: @platform-team

### 🟡 High (3)
- PAY-156: "Webhook delivery delays >5 min during peak"
  → Priority: High | Label: performance, payments

### 🟢 Medium (5)
[...]

### ⚪ Low / Backlog (2)
[...]

### 🔄 Potential Duplicates
- API-889 ≈ API-891 (both header injection related) → merge

Velocity Report

## Team Velocity — Last 5 Cycles

Cycle     | Planned | Completed | Velocity | Bugs Fixed
----------|---------|-----------|----------|----------
2026-W14  | 34 pts  | 31 pts    | 91%      | 8
2026-W15  | 36 pts  | 28 pts    | 78%      | 12
2026-W16  | 30 pts  | 30 pts    | 100%     | 5
2026-W17  | 32 pts  | 29 pts    | 91%      | 7
2026-W18  | 35 pts  | 33 pts    | 94%      | 6

Avg velocity: 30.2 pts/cycle (trending up)
Recommended next cycle: 31-33 pts
Bug ratio: 22% of capacity → healthy

Error Handling

• Invalid API key → guide to Settings → API → Personal API keys
• Team not found → list available teams for selection
• Rate limited → batch queries, respect X-RateLimit-* headers
• Stale data → verify cycle dates, refresh on conflict