Linear Issue Planner & Creator

This skill helps structure well-defined Linear issues that serve as the source of truth for implementers and testers. Issues describe the business problem and expected behavior — never the implementation approach.

The human provides the business context. Claude helps structure it clearly, fill in gaps by asking questions, and ensure consistency with team standards. Claude does not invent business requirements or prescribe technical solutions.

The Golden Rule: Business-Level Issues Only

Issues must be written at the business level. They define what needs to happen and why — not how to implement it. The implementer (human or AI) decides the technical approach.

Never include in an issue:

• File paths, class names, function names, or line numbers
• Step-by-step implementation plans
• Specific technical approaches or architectural prescriptions
• Code snippets or pseudo-code

Always include in an issue:

• The business problem or user need
• Expected behavior described in user-facing terms
• Affected business flows (e.g., "deployment creation flow", "billing authorization")
• Links to specs, Figma designs, AEPs, or discussions
• Acceptance criteria that an implementer or tester can validate against

The issue is the "protection line" — when an implementer says "I did everything the task says," the task must clearly define what success looks like in business terms.

Good Example (GitHub #2859)

## Why
We need to adjust prices to be displayed in ACT

## What
USDC will gone, so ACT needs to replace it in all places but instead of ACT
AEP-76 requires deploy-web to show `$`

There are few flows that should work:
1. Deployment creation flow
2. Money authorization creation flow
3. Add funds to escrow account

Transactions fee is paid in uAKT

Short. Business-focused. Describes the flows that need to work. No file paths. No implementation plan. An implementer knows exactly what to validate.

Modes

This skill operates in two modes. Detect which one based on what the user asks:

1. Create mode — User wants new issues. Follow the full workflow below (Phase 1–5).
2. Improve mode — User references an existing Linear issue (by ID like CON-123, or URL). Follow the Improve Existing Issues workflow instead.

Issue Types

There are three templates. Pick the one that matches what the user describes:

• Bug — Something is broken or behaving incorrectly
• Feature / Story — New functionality or enhancement driven by a user need
• Enabler / Chore — Internal improvement, tech debt, refactoring, CI/infra work

If the user doesn't specify a type, infer it from context. A report about something not working → Bug. A request for new behavior → Feature. Internal cleanup or tooling → Enabler.

Project Assignment

Every issue must be assigned to a project. Suggest a project by querying the live project list, then ask the user to confirm or change it before creating the issue.

How to suggest a project

1. Run linear project list --all-teams to get the current list of projects — names and slugs change over time, so always query the live list rather than relying on a static mapping.
2. Based on the issue's context (scope, type, source, description), suggest the most fitting project.
3. Present your suggestion and let the user confirm: "I'd suggest project X for this. Does that work, or should it go elsewhere?"

Note: "Console" (CON) is the team, not a project. All issues belong to team CON and are assigned to a project within it.

When creating the issue, use --project "<project name>" in the CLI command.

Source Labels

Every issue should have a source label indicating where it came from. Infer from context or ask the user:

If the user pastes a Sentry error or Grafana alert → source:error-log. If they say "a user reported..." → source:customer. If they describe a planned feature or link Figma → source:roadmap. Internal cleanup or DX improvements → source:internal.

Include the source label alongside the type label (Bug/Feature/Improvement) using multiple --label flags.

Initial Status

Set the initial workflow status based on issue readiness:

Use --status "<status>" in the CLI command. Default to Triage unless the user explicitly says the issue is ready to work on.

Execution Order

Express execution order without polluting titles. By default:

• Soft ordering — use Linear's manual ordering (drag-drop in the project/board view). The team maintains the intended sequence there; titles stay clean.
• Hard dependencies — use native blocked by / blocks relationships (see Phase 5). These make "X can't start until Y ships" explicit and enforceable, which a number in a title never is.

Titles get no order prefix by default — even for multi-issue plans. Linear issues already have global IDs (CON-123); a second L-N. number in the title hurts search/filtering and causes confusion.

Opt-in: L-N. title numbering

Opt-in governs starting a new sequence on an un-numbered project. Apply the L-N. convention when either is true:

• The user explicitly asks for a visible, sortable numbered plan in titles (e.g. "number these in order", "add L-N prefixes"), or
• The target project already uses L-N. numbering — continuing an existing sequence is automatic, no explicit request needed (follow the "Adding issues to a sequenced project" flow).

The convention:

Title format: L-<N>. <Original title> — N is the execution order, 1-indexed, single space after the period. Examples:

• L-1. AEP-86 SDK release in pkg.akt.dev/go
• L-2. Provider signer abstraction
• L-11. Provider bidengine verification preflight

When NOT to apply (even within an opt-in sequence):

• Single-issue creates (one-off bug, lone chore) — un-prefixed. Exception: if the target project already uses L-N., a lone new issue is not un-prefixed — the "Adding issues to a sequenced project" flow governs and assigns it an L-N. prefix with the proper insertion/renumbering procedure.
• Improve-mode edits to an existing issue's content — don't retrofit a prefix. If you're improving an un-prefixed issue that lives in a project already using L-N., mention the missing prefix and offer to add it (per the "Adding issues to a sequenced project" flow), but leave it un-prefixed unless the user agrees — don't change the title silently.

Stability: Once assigned, an issue keeps its number. Gaps are fine (cancelled issue → its number stays unused). The number lives in the title only — no Linear custom field, no label.

Adding to an already-numbered project later: see the "Adding issues to a sequenced project" section under Improve Existing Issues — it applies only to projects that already opted into L-N..

Workflow

Phase 1: Gather Context

From the user

Ask the user what they need. If they give enough context upfront, don't interrogate — fill in what you can and confirm the rest.

The user's input is the primary source of business context. Claude cannot invent business requirements — if something is unclear, ask. Focus on understanding:

• What business problem are we solving?
• What user-facing behavior should change?
• Which business flows are affected?
• Are there specs, AEPs, Figma designs, or discussions to reference?

Infer the source from how the user describes the issue (customer report, error log, internal idea, roadmap item). If unclear, ask.

From observability tools (when relevant)

For bugs and production incidents, observability data adds real evidence to the issue description.

Grafana — Search logs for errors and stack traces, find error patterns, check error rates and latency. Include links to dashboards and key log lines in the issue.

Amplitude — Query event data to understand scope/frequency, check if users have reported the issue. Include usage numbers to quantify impact.

Use ToolSearch to discover available methods on these MCP servers before calling them. Only query what's relevant. Redact tokens, emails, user IDs, and any sensitive payload fields before posting.

The goal is to add evidence (error rates, affected user counts, log links) to the issue — not to derive implementation plans from the data.

Phase 2: Define the Problem

Write the issue at the business level. It should be useful to anyone — implementer, tester, product manager, tech lead — as a source of truth for what needs to happen.

What belongs in the issue:

• Problem statement — what's wrong or what's needed, in business terms
• Expected behavior — what the user should experience when this is done
• Affected flows — which user-facing flows are impacted (e.g., "deployment creation", "wallet funding")
• Acceptance criteria — business-level conditions that define "done"
• References — links to AEPs, Figma, GitHub discussions, specs
• Dependencies — does this depend on or block other work? (tracked via native Linear relationships, not in the description — see Phase 5)

Phase 3: Break Into Small Issues

This is critical. Every issue should map to a single small PR that's easy to review. The repo has an automated PR size labeler — aim for S or M PRs. Avoid L and XL at all costs.

PR size labels (from .github/workflows/labeler.yml, excludes lock files and drizzle migration meta):

When splitting, each issue should still be a business-level slice — not a technical layer. "Add ACT pricing to deployment creation flow" is a good split. "Update utility functions" is not.

How to split:

• By business flow (preferred) — each issue covers one user-facing flow end-to-end
• By feature boundary — each independent piece of functionality gets its own issue
• By risk — risky changes (migrations, breaking API changes) get isolated into their own issue
• Enablers first — if the feature needs prerequisite work, that goes in a separate preceding issue

Issue ordering:

• The first issue should be the one that can be started immediately
• Each issue should be mergeable on its own without breaking anything
• Dependencies are tracked via native Linear relationships (blocked by / blocks / related), not in the description text — see Phase 5
• Execution order lives in Linear's manual ordering and the blocked-by/blocks relationships — not in the title (see Execution Order above). Only add L-N. title prefixes if the user explicitly asks for visible numbering.

When NOT to split:

• Simple bug fixes that are clearly small — just create one issue
• Small chores that are already atomic

Phase 4: Fill Templates & Create Issues

For each issue, fill the appropriate template.

Title prefix routing (see Execution Order):

• If the target project already uses L-N. numbering, follow the "Adding issues to a sequenced project" flow to assign the prefix — even when the user didn't explicitly ask for numbering.
• Else if the user explicitly opted into numbering for this plan, prefix each title with its sequence number.
• Otherwise use the plain template title and let Linear's manual ordering carry the sequence.

The prefix lives in the title only — the templates below describe the description content and stay unchanged.

Bug

## What's broken
[One sentence describing the broken behavior. Link to Sentry/Grafana if available.]

## Repro
1. ...
2. ...

## Expected vs Actual
Expected: [what the user should see/experience]
Actual: [what happens instead]

Feature / Story

## Why
[The business need or user problem.]

## What
[What we're building, described in user-facing terms. Link Figma/AEP/discussion if applicable.]

Flows that should work:
1. [Business flow 1]
2. [Business flow 2]

## Acceptance Criteria
- [ ] [Business-level criterion a tester can validate]
- [ ] ...

## Notes
[References, edge cases. Do NOT list dependencies here — use native Linear relationships instead.]

Enabler / Chore

## Why
[What this unblocks or improves — in business terms.]

## What
[What needs to change, described at the business level.]

Drop any section that has no content — empty placeholders are worse than no section.

Phase 5: Confirm & Create

Show the user ALL issues you plan to create with the following details for each:

• Title — include the L-N. prefix only when numbering applies: the target project already uses L-N., or the user opted in for this plan (see Execution Order)
• Description
• Suggested project (from live project list) — ask user to confirm or change
• Source label (inferred from context)
• Type label (Bug/Feature/Improvement)
• Initial status (Triage by default)
• Priority (if known)
• Ordering (for multi-issue plans) — set via Linear's manual ordering, with blocked by/blocks for hard dependencies; matches the L-N sequence only when numbering was opted into

Let them adjust before you create anything.

Then create each issue using the Linear CLI:

DESC_FILE=$(mktemp /tmp/linear-issue-desc.XXXXXX.md)
cat <<'EOF' > "$DESC_FILE"
<description content>
EOF

linear issue create \
  --title "<title>" \
  --description-file "$DESC_FILE" \
  --no-interactive \
  --team "CON" \
  --project "<project name>" \
  --status "<Triage|Backlog|Todo>" \
  --label "<Bug|Feature|Improvement>" \
  --label "<source:customer|source:error-log|source:internal|source:roadmap>" \
  [--priority <1-4>] \
  [--assignee "<assignee>"] \
  [--parent "<parent-issue-id>"]

rm "$DESC_FILE"

Always use --description-file (not inline --description) and --no-interactive. Use mktemp for unique temp file names to avoid collisions.

For multi-issue plans, create the parent issue first, then create child issues with --parent pointing to the parent's ID.

After creation, set up relationships between issues using the Linear MCP save_issue tool. Linear supports these native relationship types — use them instead of writing dependencies in the description text:

These fields are append-only — adding a new relationship never removes existing ones. To remove a relationship, use removeBlockedBy, removeBlocks, or removeRelatedTo.

Example: After creating three issues where issue 2 depends on issue 1, and issue 3 is related to both:

save_issue({ id: "CON-102", blockedBy: ["CON-101"] })
save_issue({ id: "CON-103", relatedTo: ["CON-101", "CON-102"] })

After creation, show the user all issue identifiers/URLs.

Labeling Convention

Each issue gets two labels — one for type and one for source:

Type labels (based on issue type):

• Bug → label Bug
• Feature / Story → label Feature
• Enabler / Chore → label Improvement

Source labels (based on where the issue came from):

• source:customer — customer/user reported
• source:error-log — discovered via monitoring/logs
• source:internal — team-identified
• source:roadmap — planned from roadmap

Use multiple --label flags in the CLI command to apply both labels.

Improve Existing Issues

When the user references an existing issue, the goal is to bring it up to team standards — add missing business context and ensure it serves as a clear source of truth.

Step 1: Fetch the issue

linear issue view <issue-id> --json --no-pager

Step 2: Analyze gaps

Compare the current description against the appropriate template (Bug / Feature / Enabler). Identify:

• Missing business context — no "Why", no description of affected flows
• Implementation details that don't belong — file paths, code snippets, step-by-step plans
• Vague acceptance criteria — criteria that can't be validated by a tester
• Too large — the issue describes work that should be multiple PRs
• Missing source label

Step 3: Enrich

Focus on adding business clarity:

• Add or improve the Why — what business problem does this solve?
• Describe affected flows in user-facing terms
• Write acceptance criteria a tester can validate without reading code
• Add observability data if relevant (error rates, user impact numbers, dashboard links)
• Remove any implementation details (file paths, code snippets, technical approach)

Step 4: Split if needed

If the issue is too large for a single PR, propose splitting it into child issues — each covering a business flow or feature boundary. Present the split plan to the user before executing.

Step 5: Confirm & Update

Show the user what you propose to change. Let them adjust.

Then update:

DESC_FILE=$(mktemp /tmp/linear-issue-desc.XXXXXX.md)
cat <<'EOF' > "$DESC_FILE"
<updated description>
EOF

linear issue update <issue-id> \
  --description-file "$DESC_FILE"

rm "$DESC_FILE"

If splitting into sub-issues, create the new child issues with --parent <issue-id> after updating the parent.

If the title also needs improvement, add --title "<improved title>" to the update command.

After updating, set up any missing relationships using the Linear MCP save_issue tool (see the relationship table in Phase 5). If the issue mentions dependencies in plain text, convert them to native blockedBy/blocks/relatedTo relationships and remove the text from the description.

Adding issues to a sequenced project

This applies only to a project that already opted into L-N. title numbering. By default projects aren't numbered — in that case there's nothing to renumber: just create the issue normally and let Linear's manual ordering place it.

When a project does use L-N. numbering, new issues must fit into the existing sequence — otherwise the plan loses its bird's-eye-view value.

Step 1: Detect the sequence

List the project's issues and check whether any titles match ^L-\d+\.:

linear issue list --project "<project name>" --json --no-pager

If at least one issue is sequenced, treat the whole project as sequenced. Compute the max L-N across all existing issues.

If no titles match, the project isn't numbered (the default) — fall back to the normal create flow with no prefix. Only start a new L-N. sequence if the user explicitly asks for visible numbering.

Step 2: Show the existing sequence

Show the user the existing sequence as a compact list — L-N. Title (one per line, sorted by N). This is the bird's-eye view they need to decide where the new issue(s) belong.

Step 3: Ask where to insert

Use AskUserQuestion to ask, for each new issue:

• Append at end (default): new issue becomes L-(max+1). Cleanest — no existing titles change.
• Insert at position K: new issue becomes L-K. Every existing issue with L-M where M >= K is renumbered to L-(M+1).

If multiple new issues are being added, ask once per issue, processing them in the user's chosen logical order.

Step 4: Show the renumber diff before changing anything

If any inserts cause renumbering, present a diff before touching Linear:

Renumber plan:
  L-23. Console sandbox rollout — tenant preview + QA   →  L-24. ...
  L-22. Console testnet rollout — verification surface  →  L-23. ...
  + (new) L-22. <new issue title>

Let the user confirm or adjust. Don't make any title changes until they approve.

Step 5: Apply renumbers, then create the new issue(s)

Renumber existing titles in descending order of N to avoid intermediate collisions (e.g. update L-23 → L-24 before L-22 → L-23):

linear issue update <issue-id> --title "L-<new-N>. <rest of original title>"

Strip the old L-N. prefix from the title before prepending the new one — don't end up with L-24. L-23. Foo.

Once renumbering is done, create the new issue(s) using the normal Phase 4–5 flow, with their newly assigned L-N. prefix in the title.

Tips

• If the user dumps a Sentry error or stack trace, extract the business impact (what's broken for users) and link the log — don't diagnose the code in the issue
• If the user references a Figma link, AEP, or GitHub discussion, include it in the "What" section
• Multiple areas affected? List the primary one first and consider splitting by area
• For large features, the parent issue should describe the overall goal; child issues handle individual business flows
• When in doubt about PR size, err on the side of smaller — aim for S (50–199 lines)