Linear

Overview

Linear is the backbone of Productlane. Issues, projects, customers, and your roadmap stay in sync both ways, so your inbox, feedback, public roadmap, and changelog always reflect the current state in Linear.

Connect Linear

1. Sign in to Productlane with your Linear account, or connect Linear from Settings → Integrations → Linear.

2. Connect with an account that has admin rights in Linear for full access to teams, customers, and projects.

3. The connection refreshes itself, so you stay connected without re-authenticating. Disconnecting requires an admin role in Productlane.

Choose teams and a default team

• Select which Linear teams are visible in Productlane. Only their issues and projects sync.

• Private Linear teams are not available. Make the team public in Linear to use it.

• Set a default team to speed up creating issues and projects. It is preselected in the create dialogs and used whenever an issue is created automatically.

What syncs

Two-way, in real time:

• Issues - title, description, status, priority, assignee, and due date stay in sync. Create an issue in either tool and link it to a thread.

• Projects - name, description, status, team, icon, and color stay in sync.

• Customers - name, revenue, tier, size, status, and domains sync both ways. Creating a company in Productlane creates the matching customer in Linear.

• Comments - internal comments sync both ways, and the customer conversation is mirrored into a pinned comment you can reply to. See "Comments and conversation sync" below.

From Linear into Productlane:

• Customer requests - requests attached to a Linear issue appear on the linked Productlane feedback.

• Public roadmap - your roadmap mirrors your Linear projects and their statuses.

From Productlane into Linear:

• Thread backlinks - linking a thread to an issue adds an attachment on the Linear issue that points back to the conversation, with the sender, origin, and title.

Comments and conversation sync

When a thread is linked to a Linear issue, Productlane keeps the conversation visible in both places.

• Internal comments sync both ways. A comment or reply added on a thread in Productlane is posted as a comment on the linked Linear issue, and a comment added on that issue in Linear appears back on the thread. Edits and deletes sync too, including replies.

• The customer conversation is mirrored into a pinned anchor comment. As soon as a thread is linked to an issue, Productlane posts an anchor comment on the issue linking back to the thread, backfills it with the existing conversation, then adds every new message (email, Slack, live chat, AI Agent replies, and Microsoft Teams) under it as it happens, so the full conversation is readable from Linear.

• Attachments are mirrored too. Images and files sent or received on the thread are added to the mirrored message: images are embedded inline in the Linear comment, and other files appear as links.

• Replying to the anchor comment in Linear sends the reply to the customer through the thread's original channel, exactly as if you replied from the Productlane inbox. The reply includes the same quoted conversation history and email signature a manual reply from the inbox would include. Replies to any other comment on the issue stay internal in Productlane and are never sent to the customer.

• Sending requires a Productlane seat that is not Viewer. Viewers, and Linear users with no matching Productlane account, get a warning reply and their message is not sent. If sending fails (for example, a suppressed email address), Productlane posts a warning reply under the anchor explaining why.

• If a thread is linked to more than one Linear issue, the conversation is mirrored to each linked issue's anchor comment.

• If the anchor comment becomes stale (for example, the thread's linked issue changed), Productlane automatically rebuilds the anchor on the current issue the next time a message needs to be mirrored.

Privacy: hide the Productlane thread link

By default, the anchor comment, customer request attachments, and thread backlinks that Productlane posts to Linear include a link and title pointing back to the customer's thread in Productlane.

If you don't want that link visible to people in Linear (for example, so Linear Agents or other Linear users can't click through to the customer conversation), turn on Hide Productlane thread link:

• Go to Settings → Integrations → Linear → Privacy and enable Hide Productlane thread link.

• When enabled, the anchor comment posted on linked issues no longer shows the thread title or URL, it just reads "Productlane thread connected" with a note that replies are sent to the customer.

• Customer request attachments and thread backlinks created on Linear issues also omit the thread URL and title.

• Message mirroring, internal comment sync, and replying to the anchor comment to message the customer all keep working exactly as before. Only the link and title back to the Productlane thread are hidden.

This setting applies to the whole workspace and can be changed at any time.

Deleted projects and issues in Linear

When a project or issue is deleted in Linear, Productlane does not permanently remove it. Instead, it is moved to the Closed status and appears in the Closed section on your roadmap. This protects you from accidental data loss, if someone deletes a Linear project or issue by mistake, the linked feedback and customer requests are still visible in Productlane.

To permanently remove a closed project or issue, delete it directly inside Productlane.

Turn threads into issues

• Link any thread to an existing Linear issue or project, or create a new one from the thread. Productlane records it as a customer request on the issue, along with the feedback and the contact.

• Turn on Auto-create issues to file a Linear issue automatically for every incoming thread from your customer channels (widget, live chat, email, portal, Slack Connect, and more). New issues start in your default team's triage state.

Issue templates

When creating a Linear issue from Productlane, you can apply one of your Linear issue templates to prefill the new issue.

• In the create issue dialog, click Template next to the team selector to browse templates. They are grouped by team, with workspace-wide templates listed separately.

• Templates are read directly from Linear, so the list always matches what your team manages there.

• If a team has a default template configured for its members in Linear, Productlane automatically applies that template as soon as the create issue dialog opens with that team selected, as long as you have not already picked a different template. You can always switch to another template or clear it with No template.

• Applying a template can prefill the priority, labels, description, workflow state, assignee, and project. If the template has a default title, it is appended to whatever you have already typed.

• Choosing a template that belongs to a different team automatically switches the team selector to that team, then applies the template's status, assignee, project, and labels once that team's data has loaded. This only works if the template's team is one of the Linear teams you have made visible in Productlane (see "Choose teams and a default team" above).

• If the template's team is not visible in Productlane, the team is not switched, and Productlane shows a notice that the template's status, assignee, project, and labels were skipped.

• Pick No template to clear a template you already applied.

Automations

• Auto-assign to customer owner - route a thread to the workspace member who owns the Linear customer.

• Auto-assign Cursor - assign new Linear issues to your Cursor agent so a fix can start before you reply. See the Cursor article.

• Changelog drafts - completing a project in Linear can generate a changelog draft automatically, ready for you to review and publish.

Linear permission scope

When you connect Productlane, Linear shows the prompt "Read access to your workspace". Here is exactly what that covers and why each part is needed.

Objects Productlane reads

No billing data, private comments, or objects outside the selected teams are accessed.

Team scope

If you choose Only select teams during setup, Productlane syncs only those teams. Issues, projects, states, labels, and members from teams you did not select are never fetched.

If you choose All teams, every public team in your Linear workspace is included. Private teams are excluded regardless of this setting.

Write access

In addition to reading, Productlane writes back to Linear in these ways:

• Attachments - adds a backlink on an issue when you link a thread to it, unless "Hide Productlane thread link" is enabled.

• Issues and projects - creates or updates issues and projects when you act from Productlane (for example, creating an issue from a thread or syncing a status change).

• Comments - posts, updates, and deletes comments on an issue to keep internal comments and the mirrored conversation in sync (see "Comments and conversation sync" above).