Coming from Jira
How Jira’s vocabulary translates, and what works differently here.
The translation
The mapping is close but never exactly one to one, so treat it as a starting point.
| In Jira | In Linear |
|---|---|
| Initiative or theme | Initiative |
| Program | Sub-initiative or project |
| Epic | Project, with milestones for its phases |
| Sprint | Cycle |
| Story, task, or bug | Issue |
| Sub-task | Sub-issue |
| Component or custom field | Labels |
| Board or filter | View |
What works differently
- Issue types are gone. There is no story, task, or bug type in Linear, everything is an issue, and classification happens through labels, which can be grouped and managed workspace-wide rather than growing freely like Jira tags.
- Workflows belong to teams, not projects. A team configures its statuses once, and every project it works on uses them, so there are no per-project schemes to maintain and far fewer statuses overall.
- Cycles run themselves. They start and end on schedule, and unfinished issues roll into the next cycle automatically, so closing out a sprint stops being a manual job.
Migrating data
You can run a one-time import, which moves issues, comments, and history in a single cutover, or a two-way sync, which keeps Jira and Linear live together while a longer transition completes. The Jira import guide below covers the full rundown, from concept mapping to importer setup.
Go deeper
- Jira import guide. The full migration rundown, from concept mapping to importer setup.
- Jira integration docs. Import versus sync in detail.