Linear

Linear is one of SprintBee's three work item providers.

What connecting Linear gives you#

A Linear connection lets a Planning Room estimate real issues instead of typed titles. Moderators pull issues into the queue, accepted estimates go back onto the issue's Estimate field, and splitting an oversized issue creates new Linear issues. Retro Rooms reuse the same connection — Improvement Actions can be filed as Linear issues, and a Linear cycle can stand in as the retro's period.

Work item integrations are a paid feature, included on Pro; Free rooms see a placeholder instead of a working connect button.

Where the connection lives#

There are two levels, and confusing them is the usual source of trouble.

The connection belongs to your SprintBee organization and is made once, from Dashboard → Integrations → Add connection → Linear. Linear's consent screen asks for the read, write and issues:create scopes, and the authorization is granted to SprintBee as an application rather than to you personally — so writes show up as SprintBee, no personal name is stamped onto issues, and the moderator running a session does not need a Linear seat.

The source belongs to a Workspace. Open the Workspace in the dashboard and choose Linear under Integrations & notifications. This is not configured from inside a room — a room's own Settings dialog has only Room settings and Participants. One connection can feed many Workspaces; each Workspace uses one source at a time, shared between its Planning and Retro Rooms.

Bringing issues into a room#

Moderators work from the Add work items panel's Linear tab. Its search box does two jobs: paste an issue identifier such as ENG-123 or an issue URL and it imports directly; type anything else and it runs a full-text search. An empty search lists the newest issues, so the panel is never a blank box.

Linear has no query language, so there is no JQL-style advanced mode. Searches narrow with filters instead — pick a Team, then workflow state, assignee and label. Those three are team-scoped in Linear and stay disabled until a team is chosen. Team scope in the Workspace's integration settings limits which teams are searchable at all, and a separate option refreshes queue items automatically from Linear updates, scoped to the selected teams or across every team when no scope is set.

Participants who are not moderators get a paste field rather than search, and submit identifiers or URLs as import requests a moderator approves or dismisses.

Writing estimates back#

Write-back is a single toggle, because a Linear issue has exactly one native Estimate field and there is nothing to map. It fires once, when a moderator accepts an estimate for a round linked to a Linear issue.

Before writing, SprintBee checks the value against the issue's team estimation settings — the scale type plus the extended and allow-zero toggles — and writes only values that exist on that scale. It never rounds or coerces. Non-numeric cards, numbers that are off the team's scale, and teams with estimation switched off are skipped rather than failed, and the reason is recorded against the round.

Splitting an issue#

Split items are created as real, independent Linear issues on the same team as the original, joined to it with Linear's built-in "related" relation. They are deliberately not sub-issues: a split records that work was carved up, not that a hierarchy exists. Each new issue carries only a title and description, and each issue and each link succeeds or fails on its own.

When something goes wrong#

Reconnect from Dashboard → Integrations whenever SprintBee reports that the connection needs reconnecting or that Linear rejected it — both mean the stored authorization is no longer good. Filters that look disabled need a team selected first. If no teams come back at all, check which Linear workspace you authorized. When an estimate does not appear in Linear, the round's recorded outcome names the reason.