Changelog

Linear Preview: Import Issues

If you're new to Linear and are coming from a different issue tracking application, we're working on making it easier to import your existing data into Linear.

You can now quickly import your issues, labels, projects, epics, and more from Jira, GitHub, and Clubhouse directly into your Linear workspace. If you are an admin, visit your workspace's import settings to get started.

We are continuing to work on this feature to make it more robust. We're also considering adding support to import issues from other applications. If you have feedback or a feature request, please share it with us in Slack or via the Help + Feedback modal. In the meantime, you can still import issues from Asana, Trello, and Pivotal Tracker with our command-line tool.

Fixes and improvements

• The API now supports finding issues with their previous identifier(s) in case the issue has moved teams
• Updated the design of Figma embed popups
• Improved the performance of deleting all notifications
• Improved rendering of project graph date ticks
• The project graph now always renders the project's target date
• Adding a single-team project as a favorite now shows the correct status in the page title
• It's now easier to scroll board views horizontally with scroll wheel mice.
• Fixed todo list markdown conversion in issue descriptions for lists with multiple items
• Fixed selection problems with Safari when using the mouse to hover over the command menu while navigating it with the keyboard
• Fixed a problem where different view preferences would be used when editing a project with only one associated team
• Fixed board views to scroll with the active item

Issue grouping options

We want to allow you to view your issues in a way that fits your workflow, which is why we added View options and Views. To further improve this, we have added the option to group issues by status (default), project, priority, estimate, assignee, cycle, or no grouping.

Grouping is available on single-team list views, for both default views and custom ones.

Google Sheets available for all Linear plans

Linear's Google Sheets integration is now available for all customers. Previously limited to Standard and Plus plans, we decided to make it available for everyone as we want even smaller teams have access to all integrations. Sheets integration syncs your issue data into a Google Sheet document periodically which allows for easy creation of custom analytics in the most common programming language out there–the spreadsheet.

Fixes and improvements

• Small tweaks to the design of the sub-issue editor.
• Added option to filter issues by subscriber.
• Fixed so that we don't move issues back to a previous state when merging PRs.
• Fixed URLs in Sentry and Slack access revoked emails.
• Fixed a bug when switching teams in the sub-issue editor.
• We now match Linear issues listed in GitHub pull requests regardless of capitalization.
• Fixed a bug where GitHub PRs could be matched to the wrong Linear user.
• Tweaked the design of project peek.
• Removed the "We're hiring" link from notification emails. Don't be fooled though, we're still hiring.

New webhook types

This week we're adding more options to our webhooks which can be used to build realtime updating applications on top of Linear's API. Previously we sent updates for all of a team's issues and comments to registered webhooks. This was wasteful if the developer only cared about issues and not about comments. Now you can select which resource type change notifications you want to receive. But wait, there's more! We have added more update types: issue labels, comment reactions, cycles and projects. Webhooks can now also be named to make them easier to identify.

We're working on more API-related updates and would love to hear your feedback in the #api channel in our community Slack.

Fixes and improvements

• API: Fixes to GraphQL schema inconsistencies
• API: Added new queries for User (teams) and Team (users) to make it easier to get lists of teams and their users
• Editing a Github PR to include an issue in the title or description should now trigger status changes for the issue as expected
• Issue due dates no longer show as overdue for issues completed on time
• Fixes to Git branch name formatting for issues with dashes in the title
• Fixes to the drag handle for projects in the list view
• Fix to how images are included in new issues created through the API

GitHub notifications improvements

We made small but meaningful improvements to how GitHub automation changes are handled inside Linear. As we allow admins to enable the GitHub integration for everyone, we didn't know which GitHub user matched which Linear user before. With other integrations we're able to match users via email, but with GitHub, many have their accounts under their personal email addresses. To solve this, we now use both issue assignees and past GitHub pull requests to intelligently match users to their pull requests for Inbox notifications. We have also updated issue history to correctly show GitHub as the source for status changes.

Fixes and improvements

• API: Webhooks now include restore type for unarchived events. We also cleaned up webhook payloads to match our GraphQL API responses
• Due dates are no longer shown in lists after the issue has been completed
• Mobile Firefox on iOS no longer shows unsupported browser message
• Completed issues view won't show autocompleted issues anymore
• Improved Google Sheets update reliability
• Fixes to "Go to views" (GU) shortcut not working on all views
• Fixes to sidebar drag&drop reordering on Safari
• Fixes to issue creation with templates if the template was copied from another team
• Fixes to list drag handles and multi-select styling
• Fixed popup menu sizing in certain cases
• Fixed sidebar workspace switcher styling for users with a lot of workspaces

Search notifications using Cmd + F

To improve managing your notifications, we added the ability to use CmdF to search the notifications. This also works in issue, roadmap and projects views.

Fixes and improvements

Another week is around and this time we have a bunch of bug fixes and general product improvements.

• You can now link multiple issues in PRs by including them in the PR title or branch name
• Fix to allow personal Slack notifications to the same Slack account from multiple workspaces
• Fix to link color in custom themes
• Fixes to peek background color
• Fixes to peek gradients in Safari
• Added a new copy image action
• Fixes to support modal layout
• Fixes to images in issue description markdown
• Ability to specify a template when using linear.new
• Improvements to team deletion flow
• Fixes to some data syncing edge cases
• Fixed a bug where git branch names would not be generated correctly
• Added drag handles to manually sorted lists
• Added the ability to get a url for creating new issues with a pre-filled template

Authentication restriction options

We've added advanced authentication controls for our customers on the Plus plan. With this feature, workspace administrators can restrict which methods users can use when logging in.

For example, an administrator can now require all members to login through Google in order to access their workspace. This in combination with our support for SAML on the Plus plan makes it easier to control access for larger companies.

New advanced authentication controls are available today on the Linear Plus plan.

Image options

We added options to download and copy image URLs from issue descriptions. This makes it faster to share assets or bug reports with your team. In addition to the new options, we made several small improvements to displaying images, especially larger images in the issue view.

OAuth: Automatically redirect already authenticated users

We updated Linear's OAuth provider to automatically redirect users to the provided location if they have previously approved access for the application with the same permissions (scopes). This makes it easier and less confusing to use Linear OAuth as an authentication method for your application. On each authorization, a new OAuth access token is created. If a user has more than 10 tokens for the same application and permissions, old ones are automatically revoked, so you'll want to update the user with the latest token.

Other fixes and improvements

• Issue Peek now includes the issue's cycle and labels. Enable peek mode by pressing Spacewhen browsing issues.
• More unicode characters are now supported in suggested git branch names to make it easier to use for non-English speaking users
• Roadmap pages now support searching projects with Cmdf
• Draft comments persist even if you reload the page
• Added Inbox notifications for issues with due dates
• Added support for copying multiple issue IDs if multiple issues are selected
• Added new filters: active cycle, next cycle and Roadmap milestone
• Currently active team is used for new issues when creating issues from the Inbox
• The "Clear notifications" action has been renamed to "delete all notifications" in Inbox
• Improved UI for adding custom colors for project icons
• Several improvements to mobile-friendly layouts for settings
• Downloading desktop application option is now only shown for compatible operating systems
• Improved sub-issue and new comment form styling
• A link to the issue for deleted Inbox notification is now included in the confirmation toast message
• API: projectCreate mutation doesn't require color attribute anymore
• Fixed Github pull request linking in certain cases when the reviewer was assigned upon PR creation
• Fixed favorites order in command menu
• Fixed "active cycle" favorite highlight in the sidebar when viewing the page
• Fixed cursor for issue todo lists
• Fixes marking notifications as read when issue is being saved or new comments are being added
• Fixes to sub-issue ordering when issue is updated
• Fixed "Move to top/bottom of board" actions
• Fixed label creation in command menu
• Fixes to email notification subscriptions

Bug fixes

As the end of the year draws to a close, we looked back at how much the product has evolved over the last twelve months. We take pride in building a high-quality product and try to make sure that the things we make are solid, for all our users. Even so, we still have a few bugs that haven't been fixed.

So to set us up for the new year, we did some house cleaning. Rather than starting to build a new feature, we rounded up some bugs and quick fixes that would improve the quality of the user experience. We added them to a project called bug week that the team worked on together. The work we did will make sure that we can keep moving quickly and deliver a product that we are proud of in 2021.

Here's a list of things we did:

• Fixed cases where the back button would not work correctly.
• We now send notifications to subscribers when Github PRs are merged.
• Reduced the size of data downloaded to clients.
• All view options are now retained when creating new views.
• Fixed a crash in date input modals.
• Fixed a crash in the action menu.
• Fixed a crash that could happen when resizing the screen.
• Added support for all types or URI:s in OAuth callbacks.
• Fixed a bug when changing icon colors in the roadmap.
• Improved sorting projects by "Last updated".
• Improved support for IME input.
• Canceled projects are now hidden from the "Active" projects tab.
• Fixed a layout bug in project lists.
• Fixed a crash when deleting projects.
• Fixed a bug where some favorites could not be deleted.
• Fixed a problem with the action menu and keyboard navigation in Safari.
• Fixed a crash when trying to modify archived issues.
• We now correctly copy an OAuth application's client id on the application settings page.
• Added four new theme options.
• You can now attach files in the "Contact support" modal.
• We added an easter egg. See if you can find it.

Linear 2020.12 release

To help give a holistic picture of what is new in Linear, we created a new Linear Release page which highlights new features as well as major improvements developed in the last six months. The theme for the second half of 2020 was to improve the core experience of Linear. We launched easy list selection, view options, custom views, SAML SSO, themes and more.

Series A funding with Sequoia Capital

Today, we’re announcing that we’ve raised USD 13M in Series A funding led by Sequoia Capital. We worked with Stephanie Zhan and her team on the seed round and are excited to partner with them again in this next phase of the company. Our mission is to re-envision the principles and practices of software building and make it feel magical again. Tools should fit seamlessly into your workflow and help you execute faster, collaborate quickly and focus on work. The next generation of startups is building their products on Linear and this funding helps us level up Linear to support them even more.

Read more about the investment in our Medium post.

Roadmap

Setting direction is one of the most important things you’ll do when building a product and company. You can now organize your projects under milestones by enabling Roadmap in your workspace settings. Once enabled, you can create milestones that are shared by all teams in the workspace and associate projects with these milestones, essentially creating a prioritized roadmap of projects.

Additionally, we've redesigned the team projects views as lists to make it more glanceable and consistent with the rest of the application. You can define the project lead and members of a project now as well, to communicate project ownership to the rest of the company.

Linear Method: Roadmap

We design Linear based on the principles and practices we use in product development. Today, we're sharing our first in-depth post on the Linear Method which is, unsurprisingly, about roadmaps: what they are, how you can use them, and why they're so helpful for building high quality products. People often ask us how we use Linear at Linear, so we explain how we use roadmaps, too. Read it here.

OAuth2 authentication for API

To make it easier to build integrations on Linear's GraphQL API, we added a new authentication method, OAuth2. Unlike previous personal API keys, OAuth2 makes it easier for your users to authenticate with your application and Linear. We also added more fine-grained scopes to the API so that you can only get the access you need. Several companies have already built their integrations on OAuth2, including Jam, and our Zapier integration is using it as well.

To start developing a new Linear OAuth application, head to your API settings and create a new application. To view applications that you have authorized to access your account, go to your application settings.

Read more in the Linear OAuth2 documentation.

New sub-issue editor

Two weeks ago we announced the new sub-issues editor as a Linear Preview. It features drag&drop reordering, faster composing and other improvements. Today we're rolling out the new experience to all Linear users. Open any issue, hit CmdShiftO and add new sub-issues one by one.

ProTip: When composing a sub-issue, save it with CmdEnter and add another one.

Big Sur app icon

We craft Linear to give our users the best experience in the Mac OS environment, paying attention to details. This new app icon fits better with the new Big Sur icon design guidelines. We hope this icon will find a prominent place on your dock. You should get the automatic update later today or you can download the new version manually from here.

Other improvements and fixes

• The desktop application now lets you clear all application data in case of unforeseen problems
• You can now Tab and ShiftTab through issue lists in addition to using the ↑ and ↓ keys.
• The loading logo now correctly switches between light and dark modes for custom themes
• The target date for a project can now be set via the keyboard shortcut CmdD

Custom Themes

We want Linear to fit into your workflow and feel like it's your tool. We initially created dark and light themes so that you could customize the app to your preference and now we've added the ability for you to set any theme you wish.

Theming apps can be complicated and we wanted to make this feature accessible for everyone. We've designed it so that you only need to set a few colors, such as the background, text and accent colors, which we then use to generate complimentary shades for borders and elevated boxes. To customize the theme in Linear, you can simply take the colors of your favorite text editor or set it to match your company colors. You can also share Linear themes with others by copying and pasting a single-line list of colors. Add custom themes under preferences in account settings.

Here are some themes we use on the team. Join our Linear community Slack to share custom themes you create with others in the new #themes channel.

• Ash: #FFFFFF,#44494D,#EDEEF3,#44494D,#475BA1,#FFFFFF
• Midnight: #0F0F10,#EEEFF1,#151516,#EEEFF1,#D25E65,#FFFFFF
• Dawn: #2A222E,#EEEFF1,#382A3C,#EEEFF1,#A84376,#FFFFFF
• Pale: #292D3E,#EEEFF1,#292D3E,#EEEFF1,#7D57C1,#FFFFFF
• Barbie Dreamhouse: #E2DAF1,#593E74,#FCDEEE,#593E74,#B8FAFA,#8B6BC7

Other fixes:

• Updated design for the custom view editor panel
• Added support for view preferences for project views
• Sub-issues must now have titles when they are created
• A new and improved emoji picker with keyboard navigation and easy access to frequently used emoji
• Fixed keyboard navigation when a menu and a list are open at the same time
• Fixed long urls in project details overrunning the project popover
• Fixed being unable to remove links in project details
• Fixed active issues moved to "No cycle" not going to the backlog
• Fixed not being able to cancel the target date for a project

Linear Preview: New sub-issue editing

Sub-issues help track larger pieces of work and allow coordination between different people and components. To make it easier to add and manage sub-issues, we have rebuilt how they are shown on issue views. Now you can quickly add multiple sub-issues without ever leaving the page and just with your keyboard. Press CmdShifto to open the sub-issue editor, enter the issue details and hit CmdEnter to save it and continue adding another one. Sub-issues can also be reordered in the list by dragging and dropping them to your desired order.

This is a preview feature. Admins can turn on new sub-issue editing for your workspace by selecting Enable: New sub-issues from the command menu (Cmdk then search for "preview").

SAML authentication

If your company uses an identity provider to login to services, we've added support for SAML authentication so that you can use it to login to Linear, too. It's available through our new Plus plan. We currently support most identity providers including Okta, Google, OneLogin, LastPass, Auth0 and Bitum. See a more detailed overview of the features provided in the Plus plan on the plans page.

Other improvements

• Modals in Big Sur now have a semi-transparent overlay
• Fixed autofocus in the onboarding flow
• Fixed styling for long emails in the workspace members list
• Remapped assign issue status keyboard shortcuts
• Fixed performance issues in certain issue lists for a subset of browsers
• Disabled the "Move to team" action for new, unsaved issue
• Fixed a layout issue when users have long emails on the members page

Granular Notification Settings

We're giving you more control over your notification settings. You can now customize what types of notifications you will receive and how you will receive them.

Notification types can selectively be turned on or off for all notification methods, Slack personal notifications, email, and desktop push notifications. Under each method, you can specify the triggers for sending notifications.

For instance, you can choose to receive only Slack personal notifications whenever you're assigned an issue but to receive Slack, Desktop and email notifications when an assigned issue is marked urgent or blocking. You can choose to turn off email notifications for issue comments specifically but keep notifications for status changes and @ mentions. Customize your notifications in your notification settings.

Other improvements

• View and project icons are now differentiated by their background shapes
• Improved batch operation performance
• Fixed not being able to see shared views for teams you are not a member of
• Fixed an issue when assigning a target date to a project via the calendar control
• Fixed project page always showing issues for the first team in a project’s team list
• Fixed export settings section for team members that are not admins

List and board content search

Searching for issues by their title just got a lot easier and faster. When you're on a list or board page, hit CommandF to open a search field that filters down the content based on the search query in real-time as you type. When done, press Esc to close the search field and show all of your issues.

Favorites ordering

You can now manually order your favorites in the sidebar so that the views and issues you access most often are even easier to get to. Just drag and drop a favorite to any position in the list.

Zapier updates: issue triggers

We have updated our Zapier integration to include Zap triggers for new and updated issues. When you're setting the triggers, you're also able to apply filters for various issue properties such as labels and projects. This should make it easy, for example, to filter all new issues with the label "bug" that have been opened in a team.

In addition to triggers, we also improved authentication and you'll be able to grant access with a single click instead of creating API keys.

Views

In the last changelog, we introduced Views as a Linear Preview feature. Views makes it easy to create and save views that include exactly the issues you want to see. Now Views is available to everyone. Get started with Views by clicking on the Views item in your sidebar.

Other improvements

• API: Added branchName and priorityLabel fields for Issue resource
• API: Added ability to get most recently updated resources using updatedAt pagination order
• All teams option is now also shown in board view for projects with multiple teams
• Fixed Git automation if automation had multiple completed workflow statuses
• Fixed Google Sheets integration in cases where the user has removed columns
• Fixes to pasting links in issue description and comments
• Fixed restoring scroll position in board view after opening an issue
• Fixed timezone issues with cycles

Linear preview: Views

We're adding support for custom issue views as a Linear preview feature. This makes it easy to create and save views that include exactly the issues you want to see. Your can favorite saved views so that they show up in the sidebar, giving you easy access to them. You can also share views with colleagues within your organization.

Examples of views that you could create:

• Bugs reported across different teams
• Issues you have recently completed
• Unprioritized issues in the backlog

We hope you'll find a lot more uses for custom views and we think this will make Linear work better for many different types of organizations.

Admins can turn on Views for your workspace by selecting Enable: Views from the command menu (Cmdk then search for "preview"). Views will show up under My Issues. Click on it to create your first view or save any existing list or board view as a custom view with AltV or by clicking the save view icon.

Other improvements

• You can now see issues from all teams working on a project in the same view
• Fixed a bug that caused the wrong issue to be opened in Inbox and search
• Fixed so pressing Esc in Settings returns you to the issue lists
• Adds option to subscribe/unsubscribe to team notifications in the contextual menu for teams in the sidebar
• Fixed embeds for Loom videos after their URLs changed. Improved performance in board views
• Fixed date input fields for Firefox users
• Improved the Due date icon in command menus
• Fixed a bug where due dates would show in the wrong time zone in issue history

Due dates

If you have time-sensitive issues, like renewing subscriptions, contracts or certificates, you can now add due dates to issues.

Issue lists and board views will display issue due dates. To help you find issues that require your attention, the due date icon will turn orange when the date is approaching and red when the issue is due on the same day or overdue.

You can add a due date to any issue by typing CmdD when viewing an issue or when an issue is selected on a board or list. This will bring up a date picker so you can choose the due date you wish. Alternatively, right-click to open a contextual menu or use Cmdk to search for the Set Due Date action.

You can apply due date related to filters to your list or board views, too. Type F and then select from the following: Due soon, Due today, No due date, Has due date or is Overdue.

Other improvements

• Issues with parent issues have an improved design for the link back to its parent, letting you easily browse siblings of the issue
• Re-ordering issues in the list or board views can now be undone using CmdZ
• Pressing CmdA will now select all issues
• Pressing Cmd↑ or Cmd↓ will select the first or last item in the list
• You can now press o to open a selected issue
• Fixes the Alert dialog width
• Stability and performance improvements to the contextual menu
• Issue relationship badges are now laid out better for mobile devices
• Fixes the cursor to respect user preferences for board items

Issue selection

Navigating between issues, selecting and moving them around are some of the most common interactions in Linear. We have recently made some significant improvements to how you select issues and added a few new features to lists and boards:

• Multi-select has always been available in lists but now you can also select multiple issues in board columns.
• It's now possible to drag and drop multiple issues on both board and list views.
• All select and navigation interactions & keyboard shortcuts are now the same between lists and boards.
• Selected items have a new design on both boards and lists.
• ShiftClick and ShiftCmdClick now select issues in lists and board columns. You can still use the existing keyboard shortcuts (X and ShiftX).
• We've added two-dimensional navigation with arrow keys in board views.

Hopefully, these changes should make everyday tasks in Linear feel easier and more intuitive.

Multiple accounts

We've had support for multiple workspaces for a few months but you were limited to viewing workspaces under a single Linear account. If you had multiple workspaces under different email accounts, that meant you had to log out and back to switch between workspaces or keep Linear open in different browsers.

This week we're rolling out multi-account support. Once you're logged into Linear, you can add another account and then seamlessly switch between them.

This makes it much easier to have a work and personal Linear account along with a myriad of other use cases.

To add an account or switch between them, click on your workspace name to use the new account switcher that replaced the workspace switcher in the upper left corner. You can also switch accounts through the command menu (CmdK) by simply typing the name of the workspace.

Other improvements

• Fixed cycle graphs for the lucky few who live in the GMT+13 timezone
• Fixed a bug in project contextual menu
• URLs with special characters are now correctly turned into links in comments and issue descriptions
• Fixed a bug where issue estimates in contextual menus were incorrect
• Improved how todo lists in issue descriptions work
• Made sure special characters in issue urls work correctly in our Slack integration
• Fixed a few crashes in contextual menus
• Made changes synchronize faster to other team members
• Added spellcheck to the desktop app