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Automations

Linear: Workflow Actions & Triggers

Overview

Linear is the issue tracker engineering and product teams use to plan, ship and report on work. The Linear integration brings Linear directly into the Workflow Builder so customer support, sales and marketing automations can react to engineering events — and the other way around. Twelve instant triggers and thirteen actions cover the full Linear data model: issues, projects, customers, customer needs, initiatives and documents.

This means a customer-reported bug becomes a properly tagged Linear issue with full context attached — and the same customer gets notified the moment the issue ships. No webhook plumbing, no Zapier hand-off, no third-party glue.

About the Integration

The integration ships with two halves:

Triggers (Linear → Workflows): Twelve instant, webhook-backed triggers that fire when something changes in Linear — new issue, status update, new project, new customer, new customer need, project update, document comment, initiative update, and more.
Actions (Workflows → Linear): Thirteen actions that let workflows create and update Linear records — issues, comments, attachments, labels, projects, customers and customer needs.

Every trigger and action is flagged as a premium workflow component — premium action credits apply at the standard automation rate.

Key Benefits of Linear in Workflows

Closed-loop customer feedback — Capture bugs and feature requests as customer-attributed Linear records, then notify the original reporter when work ships.
Revenue-weighted product prioritization — Customer Need entries linked to Linear customer records let product see request volume by tier and revenue, not just by who is loudest.
Real-time engineering visibility — project updates and initiative updates flow into customer comms, status pages, or sales digests automatically.
Two-way linking — Create Issue Attachment links a CRM record into a Linear issue and back; engineers can navigate to the customer context with one click.
Instant triggers — webhook-backed delivery, no polling lag.
Native, governed connection — OAuth-based, with workspace and team scoping. No long-lived API tokens to manage.

How to Set Up Linear

Before any Linear trigger or action can run, the integration has to be connected. The connection allows your workflows to securely read from and write to your Linear workspace.

Connect via the Workflow Builder (recommended)

Open Automation → Workflows and pick (or create) a workflow.
Add a Linear trigger or action — search for Linear in the Apps tab.
Select any Linear trigger or action.
On the action card, click Connect Now.
Sign in to your Linear account when prompted; authorize the workspace and team(s) you want to expose.
Click Save to complete the connection.

Connect via Settings (alternative path)

Go to Settings → Integrations.
Locate Linear in the integrations list and click Connect.
Authenticate via OAuth and authorize the workspace.

List of Triggers

All triggers are Instant — they are powered by Linear webhooks and fire within seconds of the underlying change.

New Issue - Fires when a new issue is created. Filterable by team.
Updated Issue - Fires when an issue’s status, priority, assignee, labels or other fields change.
New Issue Comment - Fires when a new comment is added to any issue.
New Project - Fires when a new project is created in Linear.
New Project Update - Fires when a project update is posted (with health status).
Updated Project Update - Fires when an existing project update is edited.
New Customer - Fires when a new customer record is created in Linear.
Updated Customer - Fires when an existing customer record is edited.
New Customer Need - Fires when a new customer need (feature request) is captured.
Updated Customer Need - Fires when a customer need’s status, priority or linked work changes.
New Document Comment - Fires when a new comment is added to a Linear document (PRD, spec, proposal).
New Initiative Update - Fires when an update is posted on a Linear initiative.

List of Actions

Create Issue - Creates a new issue in Linear with title, description, team, project, priority, assignee, labels and due date.
Update Issue - Updates fields on an existing issue. Only fields explicitly set are sent.
Get Issue - Fetches the latest state of a single issue by ID.
Find Issues - Searches Linear issues by team, project, label, status, assignee or text.
Create Comment - Adds a comment (markdown supported) to an existing issue.
Create Issue Attachment - Attaches a URL to an issue with two-way linking back to the source record.
Add Label To Issue - Adds a label to an existing issue.
Remove Label From Issue - Removes a label from an existing issue.
Create Project - Creates a new Linear project with name, description, lead and target date.
Find Project - Looks up a Linear project by name or filter.
Create Customer - Creates a customer record in Linear (name, domain, tier, revenue).
Find Customer - Finds a Linear customer by name or domain.
Create Customer Need - Creates a customer need linked to a customer record; can be linked to an issue or project.

Example: Setting Up a Trigger (New Issue)

This walkthrough wires up a workflow that fires every time a new issue is created in a specific Linear team — for instance, your customer-facing engineering team — and uses the issue payload as the source of all downstream actions.

Step 1: Add the trigger

Open the workflow and click Add Trigger.
Switch to the Apps tab and search for Linear.
Select New Issue from the Linear trigger list.

Step 2: Configure the trigger

Workflow Trigger Name — Give the trigger a meaningful label such as ‘New Engineering Issue’.
Filters → Team — Pick the Linear team to monitor. The dropdown lists every team your authorized OAuth connection can see.
Add filters (optional) — Add label, project, priority or status filters so only the issues that matter enroll into this workflow.

Step 3: Test the trigger

Click Find New Records inside the Test Your Trigger panel.
The system fetches the most recent matching issues from Linear.
In the Records — Select Mapping Reference dropdown, pick one of the returned records. This locks the payload schema so every downstream step can map fields cleanly.
Click Save Trigger to finish.

Example: Setting Up an Action (Create Issue)

This walkthrough turns an inbound customer form into a properly contextualized Linear issue.

Step 1: Add the action

Inside the workflow, click Add to insert a new step.
Open the Apps tab and select Linear.
Choose Create Issue from the action list.

Step 2: Connect (first time only)

If the integration is not yet connected, click Connect Now on the action card.
Sign in to Linear via OAuth and authorize the workspace.

Step 3: Configure the action

Action Name — ‘Create Customer Bug Issue’ or similar.
Team (required) — pick the Linear team that should own the issue.
Title (required) — use inline workflow variables, e.g. ‘[Customer Bug] {{trigger.subject}} — {{contact.full_name}}’.
Description — include the form payload, contact context and CRM record URL using markdown.
Priority — optionally branch by tier; map enterprise tier to High.
Project — optional. Pin the issue to a specific project.
Assignee — optional. Set a triage owner or rotate via a workflow variable.
Labels — add a source label (‘from-customer-support’) plus any tier or area labels.
Due Date — optional, for issues with SLAs.

Step 4: Save and chain

Click Save Action. The new issue’s ID and URL are exposed as workflow output variables. Chain a Create Issue Attachment step right after to attach the CRM contact URL — this gives engineers a one-click path back to the customer context inside Linear.

How to Test the Trigger and Action

Always test before publishing. Testing locks the payload schema and gives downstream steps a real record to map against.

Test the trigger

Inside the trigger panel, click Find New Records.
Select a recent record from the dropdown to use as the mapping reference.
Confirm the payload preview matches the fields you plan to use downstream.

Test the action

Inside the action panel, click Test Action.
The action runs against the live Linear workspace using sample values from the latest test trigger.
Verify the issue (or comment, or customer need) appears in Linear as expected.
If the result is not right, refine the field mapping or filters and re-test. Once happy, click Save Action, then run a full Test Workflow before publishing.

Common Use Cases

Use Case 1: Customer-Reported Bug → Linear Issue with Context

Goal: Capture every customer-reported bug as a properly tagged, attributed Linear issue.

Workflow Setup:

Trigger: Form Submission (or inbound conversation)
Action: Find Customer in Linear (by domain)
Action: Create Issue (with source label, contact context, CRM link in description)
Action: Create Issue Attachment (CRM record URL)
Action: Create Customer Need (linked to the new issue and the Linear customer)

Example: A user submits a bug report on the support form. The workflow finds the matching Linear customer, creates a tagged issue with the conversation context, attaches the CRM contact URL, and logs a customer need against the customer record so product can prioritize by revenue.

Use Case 2: Linear Issue Resolved → Notify the Customer

Goal: Auto-notify the original reporter the moment their bug ships.

Workflow Setup:

Trigger: Updated Issue (filter on status = Done and label = from-customer-support)
Action: Get Issue (refresh to capture the final state)
Action: AI summarize the resolution into customer-friendly language
Action: Send Email or SMS to the original reporter

Example: When engineering closes a bug that originally came from a customer, the workflow detects the status change, summarizes the fix in plain language, and emails the reporter without requiring a CSM in the loop.

Use Case 3: Engineering Project Update → Customer Comms

Goal: Convert engineering project updates into customer-ready release notes or stakeholder digests.

Workflow Setup:

Trigger: New Project Update
Action: AI rewrite the update body for a non-technical audience
Action: Update Custom Field on the matching opportunity, or send to a digest mailing list

Example: A weekly project update posted by engineering becomes a softened, customer-facing status snippet on the corresponding opportunity record — no double-work for the project lead.

Use Case 4: CRM ↔ Linear Customer Sync

Goal: Keep customer records in lockstep across both systems so revenue-weighted prioritization actually works.

Workflow Setup:

Trigger A: New Customer in CRM → Action: Create Customer in Linear
Trigger B: Updated Customer in Linear → Action: Update CRM record (tier, owner, revenue)

Example: Whenever a deal closes in the CRM, the company appears as a Linear customer with the right tier and revenue tag — making every customer need that comes in afterwards automatically prioritizable.

Use Case 5: Sales Conversation → Customer Need

Goal: Turn AE call insights into structured product feedback without manual logging.

Workflow Setup:

Trigger: Call recording transcript ready
Action: AI extract feature requests from the transcript
Action: Find Customer in Linear
Action: Create Customer Need (one per extracted request)

Example: After a sales call, an AI step pulls every concrete request out of the transcript. Each becomes a customer need on the right Linear customer — product gets a clean, attributed list to triage, instead of free-text notes scattered across the CRM.

Best Practices

Always set the Team filter on triggers — Linear workspaces typically span many teams, and unfiltered triggers will fire for unrelated activity.

Tag every workflow-created issue with a clear source label (‘from-customer-support’, ‘from-sales-call’) — it makes engineering reporting trivial and lets you filter notify-on-resolution flows downstream.
Pair Find Customer with Create Customer Need rather than calling Create Customer Need cold — avoids duplicate customer records when the same domain hits you multiple times.
Use Create Issue Attachment for every workflow-created issue. The two-way link is the difference between an engineer who has full customer context and one who has to context-switch into the CRM.
For multi-team workspaces, keep one workflow per Linear team rather than one workflow with branching logic — failures and changes are easier to reason about.
Use Update Issue for status flips rather than Create Issue + delete dance. Update is partial — unrelated fields stay untouched.
Test the trigger first to lock in the mapping reference, then build downstream actions against it. The Records — Select Mapping Reference field is the foundation of clean field mapping.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is Linear?

Linear is a modern issue tracker used by engineering and product teams to plan and ship work. It models issues, projects, customers, customer needs (feature requests) and initiatives.

Q: Which Linear plan do I need?

Most triggers and actions work on Linear’s standard plans. The Customer and Customer Need entities require Linear’s Customer Requests feature, which is gated behind specific Linear plan tiers — check Linear’s pricing for current details.

Q: Are Linear actions premium workflow actions?

Yes. All Linear triggers and actions are flagged as premium and consume premium action credits at the standard automation rate.

Q: Are these triggers Instant or polled?

All twelve triggers are Instant. They are powered by Linear webhooks, so the workflow fires within seconds of the change.

Q: Can I filter triggers by team?

Yes. Triggers like New Issue, Updated Issue and New Issue Comment expose a Team filter. Add more granular filters with the Add filters control.

Q: Does Update Issue overwrite fields I do not set?

No. Update Issue is a partial-update action — only fields you explicitly set are sent. Unrelated values stay as they are in Linear.

Q: Can I use workflow variables in action fields?

Yes. Inline variables work in title, description, labels, priority, project and assignee fields, and resolve per execution.

Q: What happens if the issue I am trying to update no longer exists?

The action surfaces an error to the workflow execution log, and the workflow continues based on its branching. Add a fallback branch if downstream steps depend on the update succeeding.

Q: How do I attach a CRM record URL to a Linear issue?

Chain Create Issue → Create Issue Attachment, passing the issue ID from the first step. The attached URL becomes a two-way linked attachment inside Linear.

Q: Can the workflow create a Linear customer if one does not exist?

Yes. Use Find Customer first; if the lookup returns nothing, branch to Create Customer, then proceed to Create Customer Need.

Q: Can I disconnect Linear without breaking my workflows?

Disconnecting will pause every workflow that depends on Linear triggers or actions. The workflows themselves remain intact and resume as soon as the integration is reconnected.

Q: Are these actions production-ready?

All triggers and actions are released as Beta. They are safe to use in live workflows; expect incremental UX changes — additional filters, additional fields — as the integration moves out of Beta.