Connect Linear to Rig

    Sync issues, projects and teams into the warehouse, so engineering work sits alongside the support tickets and customer accounts that caused it. The question this usually gets asked to answer is how long something took and what it was blocking, which needs both halves in one place.

    Requirements
    A Linear account with access to the teams you want to sync
    Time required
    3 mins

    Before you start

    A Linear key belongs to a person, and it sees what that person can see. Creating it from an account that will still exist in a year is the difference between a sync that keeps working and one that stops the week someone leaves.

    Create the API key

    1. In Linear, click your account at the top left, then Settings.
    2. Go to Security and access and scroll down to the API keys section.
    3. Click Create API key.
    4. Give it a name you will recognise later, choose read scopes, and grant access to the teams you want in the warehouse.
    5. Copy the key. Linear shows it once.

    Connect it in Rig

    1. In Rig, open Connections and go to Sources & actions.
    2. Search for Linear and open the card.
    3. Linear API key: paste the key.
    4. Click Test, then Sync.

    What Rig pulls in

    Linear lands in its own linear schema, in three tables.

    • Issues: identifier and title, description, priority, state, team, project, assignee, and the three timestamps that make lead time answerable, namely created, updated and completed.
    • Projects: name, description, state, start and target dates, and when the project was completed.
    • Teams: name, key and description. The team key is the prefix in an issue identifier, so this is what lets ENG-412 resolve to a team without string parsing.

    Comments, cycles, labels and attachments are not part of this connector today. If reporting depends on any of them, worth raising before you build on it.

    Troubleshooting

    • A team is missing: the key was not granted that team. Team permissions cannot be extended on an existing key, so create a new one with the full set and replace it in the connection.
    • The key is rejected: it was probably truncated on copy, or it belongs to a deactivated account. Linear keys stop working the moment their owner is deactivated.
    • Issues sync but projects are empty: the key lacks a read scope for projects. Scopes are chosen at creation, so this is a new key rather than an edit.
    • Completed timestamps are null on closed issues: they were closed as cancelled rather than completed. Linear only stamps a completion time for issues that reached a completed state.

    What people use this for

    • Measure issue lead time and throughput
    • Monitor backlog health and aging issues
    • Track project delivery against target dates

    More ideas for using Linear

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