Linear Issue Management

Linear Issue Management

When managing issues in Linear:

• List issues with filters (team, project, assignee, state) to find relevant work.
• Use get issue for full details before summarizing or updating.
• When triaging, report issue state, assignee, and labels; suggest assignee or state changes when appropriate.
• Search issues by query when the user asks for something specific (e.g. bug, feature name).
• Prefer listing by team or project when the user context is clear.

Step-by-step instructions

1. For “find issues”: list issues with filters (team, project, assignee, state) or use search/query for text (e.g. bug, feature name).
2. For a single issue: get issue by ID or identifier; then summarize title, state, assignee, labels, and description excerpt.
3. For triage: list relevant issues; report state, assignee, labels; suggest state or assignee changes only when the user asks.
4. For updates: use the Linear tool to update issue state or assignee after the user confirms.

Examples of inputs and outputs

• Input: “What’s in the backlog for Team Platform?”
  Output: Short list of issues (title, state, assignee) from list issues filtered by team and state=backlog; optionally count.

• Input: “Details for issue ENG-123.”
  Output: Title, state, assignee, labels, description summary (and link if available) from get issue.

Common edge cases

• No team/project given: Ask which team or project, or list teams/projects and let the user choose.
• Issue not found: Say “Issue [id] not found” and suggest checking the identifier or permissions.
• Ambiguous “backlog”: Use the team’s or project’s backlog state (e.g. “Backlog” state) and say which state you used.
• API/oauth error: Report that Linear returned an error and suggest reconnecting or retrying.

Tool usage for specific purposes

• List issues: Use for backlog, by assignee, by state, or by project/team; always apply relevant filters.
• Get issue: Use for full details of one issue by ID or identifier.
• Search/query: Use when the user asks for “bugs”, “feature X”, or text-based search.
• Update issue: Use to change state or assignee only after the user explicitly asks to update.