Issue templates

Create issue templates for common issue types.

Overview

Use issue templates to write issues faster and guide creators to share information effectively. You can include instructions or specific formatting in the issue description as well as apply certain fields such as labels. It's also possible to set default templates for teams.

Create an issue template

Create new templates by navigating to either the Workspace settings > Templates or Team settings > Templates.

When you create a workspace-level template, all teams will be able to use it, but you cannot specify team-specific properties like status for the template.

When you create a team-level template, only that team can use the template.

You can create templates with sub-issues by choosing the "+ Add sub-issue" option on the template creation page.

Use a template

The fastest way to create an issue with a template is to use the keyboard shortcut Option/Alt C. This will bring up a list of templates available and then open the selected one in the issue editor. You can also access templates directly from the issue creation modal by clicking on templates next to the team name, or use Ctrl Option/Alt Shift T shortcut.

To apply a template in a sub-issue, from the sub-issue creation modal, click on the square icon in the top right, which will show you a list of possible templates.

If you don't see the template, check that you're creating the issue from the right team. In a sub-issue, it will only show templates that do not already contain sub-issues as an option to apply.

Default templates

Default templates can be set up on the team template settings page. When you set a default template, it will show up whenever new issues are created under your specific team. You can configure defaults differently for members of your team or people who are not part of your team.

Placeholder text

If you want to prompt the creator to input certain information in the issue's description, consider using placeholder text in your template.

To format as placeholder text, select text while editing your template and click the rightmost icon on the formatting bar. This formatting type is only available when creating or editing templates.

Placeholder text is particularly useful when formatting templates designed to be used as Asks. See how this formatting type renders in the Asks integration to create structured forms here.

Templates in integrations

Templates created in Linear can also be used in several of our integrations to help save time and maintain good issue hygiene.

Our Zendesk and Intercom integrations support adding templates to appear in those tools when creating Linear issues.

Our Slack integration also has template functionality available when creating issues from Slack messages.

Add a template to supported integrations through the overflow menu in template settings.