Cycles

A repeating window of work that gives the team its rhythm.

What cycles are⁠

Cycles are fixed working periods, one to eight weeks long, in which a team commits to a set of issues. They resemble sprints but are decoupled from releases, and each team that enables them, in Team settings → Cycles, chooses its own length, start day, and an optional cooldown period between cycles for bugs and cleanup work.

Planning a cycle⁠

• Issues can be assigned to the current cycle or any of the next 15, which Linear generates automatically
• Before a cycle starts, a capacity dial estimates how achievable its scope is, based on the team’s velocity over the last three completed cycles

While a cycle runs⁠

• Unfinished issues roll into the next cycle on their own when a cycle ends, with nothing to close out by hand
• An optional automation adds any issue you start or complete to the current cycle if it wasn’t in one
• The Cycles dashboard tracks scope, progress, and completion, and cycle history is preserved even as the issues in it change later

Go deeper⁠

• Cycles. Configuration, rollover, and the cycles dashboard.