Linear Workflow Patterns

What It Does

Reference patterns and conventions for Linear PM workflows. Loaded by commands and agents for consistent behavior.

When to Use

Use when yellow-linear plugin commands or agents need shared Linear workflow context, including issue-writing guidance, branch naming conventions, or workflow state definitions.

Usage

This skill is not user-invokable. It provides shared context for the yellow-linear plugin's commands and agents.

Team Context

Linear team names match GitHub repository names exactly. Auto-detected from git remote:

git remote get-url origin 2>/dev/null | sed 's|.*/||' | sed 's|\.git$||'

The extracted repo name is matched against list_teams results (case-sensitive exact match). This means:

• No manual team selection needed in most cases
• Works across multiple repos/teams automatically
• If multiple teams match the same name, prompt user to disambiguate via AskUserQuestion
• Falls back to AskUserQuestion if no match found

Branch Naming Convention

Format: <type>/<TEAM-ID>-<description>

Examples:

• feat/ENG-123-auth-flow
• fix/ENG-456-login-redirect
• refactor/ENG-789-api-cleanup

Issue ID extraction pattern: [A-Z]{2,5}-[0-9]{1,6} (case-sensitive, first match wins). Always validate the extracted ID via get_issue before use.

Issue Writing Tips

Good Titles

• Start with what's affected: "Auth token refresh fails on slow connections"
• Be specific: "Login page returns 500 on empty email" not "Login broken"
• Include scope: "API v2: Add rate limiting to /users endpoint"

Acceptance Criteria Format

## Acceptance Criteria

- [ ] User can reset password via email link
- [ ] Reset link expires after 24 hours
- [ ] Error message shown for expired links
- [ ] Rate limit: max 3 reset requests per hour

Priority Definitions

Priority	When to Use
Urgent	Production is down, data loss, security breach
High	Major feature blocked, significant user impact
Medium	Normal feature work, non-critical bugs
Low	Nice-to-have, cosmetic issues, tech debt

Triage Flow

1. Review unassigned issues (sorted by creation date)
2. For each issue:
   • Set priority based on definitions above
   • Assign to team member based on domain expertise
   • Move from Triage → Backlog (or Todo if urgent)
   • Add relevant labels
3. Confirm bulk changes before applying (>3 issues)

Cycle Planning Checklist

1. Review current cycle completion stats
2. Carry over incomplete high-priority items
3. Pull from backlog by priority (Urgent → High → Medium)
4. Balance workload across team members
5. Ensure no single person has >5 active issues
6. Leave 20% capacity buffer for unplanned work

Status Update Template

## Weekly Status: [Project Name]

### Progress

- Completed: X issues (list highlights)
- In Progress: Y issues
- Blocked: Z issues (list with reasons)

### Highlights

- [Key achievement or milestone]

### Risks

- [Blocker or risk with mitigation plan]

### Next Week

- [Planned focus areas]

Workflow States

Do NOT hardcode status names. Always fetch valid statuses from list_issue_statuses for the target team. Common patterns:

Typical State	Meaning
Triage	New, needs review
Backlog	Accepted, not started
Todo	Planned for current cycle
In Progress	Actively being worked on
In Review	PR submitted, awaiting review
Done	Completed and verified
Cancelled	Won't do

Input Validation

All $ARGUMENTS values are user input and must be validated before use:

• Issue IDs: Must match ^[A-Z]{2,5}-[0-9]{1,6}$ exactly. Reject anything else.
• Titles/descriptions: Max 500 characters. Strip HTML tags before passing to API.
• Cycle/filter names: Alphanumeric, spaces, and hyphens only. Max 100 characters.
• General rule: Never interpolate $ARGUMENTS into shell commands. Pass to MCP tools as API parameters only.

If validation fails, report the format error and prompt the user to correct it.

Security Patterns

C1: Issue ID Validation

Before any write operation using a branch-extracted issue ID, call get_issue to verify:

• The issue exists
• It belongs to the user's workspace

This prevents cross-workspace data corruption from ID collisions.

H1: Bulk Operation TOCTOU

Between user review and confirmation, issues may change. Re-fetch state before applying bulk changes.

M3: Agent Write Safety (Two-Tier Model)

Linear state transitions follow a two-tier safety model based on reversibility and impact:

Tier 1 — Auto-apply (notify only): Non-terminal, reversible transitions triggered by explicit user actions. Applied with post-hoc notification (e.g., "Updated ENG-123 to In Review") but no pre-confirmation.

Transition	Trigger	Rationale
* → In Progress	/linear:work starts work on issue; /linear:delegate delegates to Devin	Reversible, no external notifications
* → In Review	/smart-submit creates a PR	Reversible, user explicitly submitted code
In Review → In Progress	Moving backward (re-opening work)	Reversible, no data loss

Tier 2 — Confirm (AskUserQuestion required): Terminal, ambiguous, or externally-visible transitions. Requires explicit user confirmation via AskUserQuestion before applying.

Transition	Trigger	Rationale
* → Done	PR merged, work verified	Terminal, triggers notifications, may close PRs
* → Cancelled	Issue abandoned	Terminal, may have cascading effects
* → Backlog	De-prioritization	Ambiguous intent, may lose cycle assignment

Classification criteria: Auto-apply when ALL of these hold: (1) transition is reversible, (2) no information is destroyed, (3) minimal external notifications, (4) no cascading side effects. Confirm when ANY criterion fails.

Evolution note: This is an evolution of the original M3 rule ("always confirm before writes"). The original rule was overly conservative for transitions triggered by explicit user workflow actions (e.g., submitting a PR implies intent to move to "In Review"). Tier 2 preserves the original M3 behavior for all terminal transitions. Agents that modify Linear state outside the two-tier model (e.g., custom status updates) must still use Tier 2 confirmation.

Read-only agents never modify state.

PR Convention

• Create PRs via Graphite: gt submit
• Read PR state via GitHub: gh pr view, gh api
• Never use gh pr create for PR creation
• Link issues to PRs by adding a comment with the PR URL

Shell Patterns

Always quote variables when handling Linear-derived data:

# Extract issue ID from branch name
branch_name="$(git branch --show-current)"
issue_id="$(printf '%s' "$branch_name" | grep -oE '[A-Z]{2,5}-[0-9]{1,6}' | head -n1)"

# Validate before use
if [ -z "$issue_id" ]; then
  printf '[linear] No issue ID found in branch name "%s"\n' "$branch_name" >&2
  exit 1
fi

# Call MCP tool (never interpolate $ARGUMENTS into shell commands)
# Pass as API parameters only

Error Handling Guidance

Error	Action
Authentication required	Re-run command to trigger OAuth re-authentication
Rate limited (429)	Exponential backoff: wait 1s, 2s, 4s. Max 3 retries.
Issue not found	Verify issue ID exists in your Linear workspace
Team not found	Check git remote matches a Linear team name
Partial batch failure	Report which items succeeded/failed. Offer to retry failed items.

Bulk Operation Rate Limiting

For commands that issue multiple writes (triage, plan-cycle):

• Add a brief delay between each update_issue call for batches >5 items
• If a 429 rate limit response occurs, pause and retry with exponential backoff
• On partial failure, report results so far and offer to retry remaining items
• Never leave the user guessing about state after a partial failure