OpenClaw + Linear: AI-Driven Issue Management

OpenClaw's Linear integration connects your AI agent to Linear's issue tracker, letting you create issues, query cycles, manage backlogs, and automate routine project management — from your terminal, without switching context. For engineering teams that live in Linear, this means your project management tool becomes conversational.

Linear is particularly well-suited to AI integration because its data model is clean and its API is excellent. The combination of OpenClaw's agent runtime and Linear's API produces some genuinely useful workflows.

What You Can Do#

With the Linear Skill loaded, OpenClaw can:

• Create issues with full metadata (priority, labels, team, cycle, estimate)
• Query issues by assignee, status, priority, label, or cycle
• Update issue status and assignment in bulk
• Manage cycle (sprint) planning and retrospectives
• Triage inbox issues and route them to the right team
• Generate project reports and status summaries
• Sync Linear data to DuckDB for local analytics

Setup#

1. Install DenchClaw#

npx denchclaw

2. Get a Linear API Key#

1. Open Linear → Settings → API
2. Create a Personal API Key
3. Copy the key

export LINEAR_API_KEY="lin_api_your_key_here"

Linear's API uses GraphQL. The OpenClaw Linear Skill handles the query construction — you don't need to write GraphQL yourself.

3. Load the Linear Skill#

Load the Linear skill and help me manage issues in the Backend team.

For workspace configuration details, see the DenchClaw setup guide.

Creating Issues#

Quick Capture#

The fastest workflow: turn a thought into a Linear issue before you forget it.

Create a Linear issue in the Backend team:
"Rate limiting on the /api/search endpoint is not working — 
users can make unlimited requests. This needs to be fixed 
before the public launch."
Priority: Urgent
Label: Bug, Security

The agent creates the issue and returns the ID and URL. Total time: 10–15 seconds.

Contextual Issue Creation#

Linear's model is team-based. When you're specific about context, the agent creates better issues:

I'm refactoring the authentication module. Create a tech debt 
issue for removing the legacy session handling code we discussed.
It's in /src/auth/legacy-sessions.ts. Low priority, no rush,
just want to track it. Assign to me.

The agent creates an issue with appropriate labeling, assigns it to you, and sets the estimate as a small task.

Issues from Code Review#

During code review of PR #89, I found that the error handling 
in the payment processor swallows exceptions silently. 
Create an issue for this and link it to PR #89 in the description.

Querying and Reporting#

Cycle Status#

What's the status of the current cycle for the Backend team?
How many issues are in each state?
What's the probability of completing the cycle on time given current velocity?

The agent queries the active cycle, counts by state, calculates completion percentage, and gives a realistic assessment based on days remaining and unstarted work.

Personal Dashboard#

Show me everything I need to do today:
- My issues marked as "Urgent" or "High" priority
- Issues I'm blocking others on (where I haven't responded)
- PRs waiting for my review (if GitHub skill is also loaded)

Cross-tool visibility from a single query. This is what OpenClaw's multi-skill architecture enables.

Team Health#

For the last 3 completed cycles, tell me:
- Average issues committed vs completed
- Which issue types (bug vs feature vs tech debt) had the most carryover
- Any recurring themes in issues that missed cycles

This kind of retrospective data is usually buried in Linear's analytics. The agent surfaces it directly.

Triage Workflows#

Linear's inbox fills up. The agent can help you process it systematically.

Inbox Triage#

Process the Linear triage inbox for the Backend team:
- Assign any bugs to the on-call engineer
- Move any tech debt issues to the "Tech Debt" project
- Flag any issues that look like security vulnerabilities
- For everything else, set priority based on the description

What might take 30 minutes of manual work runs in under 2 minutes.

Label and Route#

Find all issues in the Backend team that are labeled "needs-triage" 
and haven't been touched in more than 3 days.
For each one, summarize the issue and suggest the appropriate team 
(Backend, Frontend, DevOps, or Mobile) based on the content.

The agent reads each issue, classifies it, and either auto-assigns or presents you with a routing suggestion.

Cycle Planning#

Pre-Cycle Planning#

We're starting the next cycle on Monday. Pull all the highest 
priority backlog issues for the Backend team.
Show me the total estimated points, flag any with missing estimates,
and suggest what would make a reasonable cycle given our last 3-cycle
average velocity of 45 points.

The agent pulls backlog data, calculates point totals, flags incomplete estimates, and gives you a scoped recommendation.

Mid-Cycle Check-In#

We're halfway through the current cycle. How are we tracking?
Which issues are at risk of not completing?
Are there any blockers I should know about?

This is your weekly PM check-in, automated.

Cycle Retrospective#

The Backend team's cycle 23 just completed. Generate a retrospective:
- What we committed to vs. what we completed
- Issues that rolled over and why
- Average cycle time per issue type
- Team member contribution distribution

Automating Linear from Events#

From CI/CD#

When a build fails, automatically create a Linear issue:

# In your CI pipeline, on failure:
openclaw run "Create a Linear issue in the Backend team: 
'CI build failed on main branch at $(date)'. 
Attach this build log: [log content]. 
Priority: High. Label: CI."

From GitHub PRs#

When a PR is merged, mark the linked Linear issue as complete:

openclaw run "PR #$PR_NUMBER was just merged on the $REPO repo. 
Find any Linear issues in the description or branch name 
and mark them as Done."

From Customer Support#

When a customer reports a bug, create the technical ticket:

Customer reported: "The export button on the reports page does nothing 
when clicked in Safari on iOS."
Create a Linear bug in the Frontend team, label it "customer-reported",
and cross-reference it to our DuckDB support tickets table under ticket ID 4821.

This bridges your customer-facing workflow with your engineering workflow — and keeps both systems updated.

Storing Linear Data in DuckDB#

For longer-term analytics, sync Linear metadata to your local workspace:

CREATE TABLE linear_issues (
  id VARCHAR PRIMARY KEY,
  identifier VARCHAR,  -- e.g., ENG-1234
  title VARCHAR,
  team VARCHAR,
  state VARCHAR,
  priority INTEGER,  -- 0=None, 1=Urgent, 2=High, 3=Medium, 4=Low
  assignee VARCHAR,
  estimate FLOAT,
  labels VARCHAR[],
  cycle_id VARCHAR,
  created_at TIMESTAMP,
  completed_at TIMESTAMP
);
 
CREATE TABLE linear_cycles (
  id VARCHAR PRIMARY KEY,
  team VARCHAR,
  number INTEGER,
  starts_at TIMESTAMP,
  ends_at TIMESTAMP,
  committed_points FLOAT,
  completed_points FLOAT
);

With this data locally, the questions you can answer grow significantly:

• "What's our rolling 6-cycle velocity trend?"
• "Which engineer has the highest on-time completion rate?"
• "What percentage of our work is bugs vs. features vs. tech debt over time?"
• "How often do we accurately estimate cycle scope?"

This is the kind of engineering analytics that normally requires a custom dashboard. With DuckDB and the AI agent, it's a question. Learn more about DenchClaw's workspace model.

Linear vs. Jira vs. GitHub Issues#

If you're using multiple issue trackers across your organization (common in larger teams), OpenClaw can work with all of them simultaneously:

I need a cross-tool summary: 
- My open issues in Linear (Backend team)
- My assigned Jira tickets (INFRA project)
- GitHub issues I'm mentioned in (payments-service repo)

Give me everything in one prioritized list.

This multi-tool synthesis is one of OpenClaw's strongest capabilities. No single issue tracker's UI can do this.

See the OpenClaw GitHub integration and Jira integration for the other tool setups.

FAQ#

Does OpenClaw work with Linear's sub-issues (children)? Yes. Linear's API exposes the parent/child relationship. The agent can create sub-issues, query children of a parent, and traverse issue hierarchies.

Can OpenClaw set Linear issue estimates? Yes, via the estimate field. You need to tell the agent what estimate scale your team uses (Fibonacci, T-shirt, or points). The agent can also suggest estimates based on issue complexity.

Does the integration work with Linear's project view? Yes. Linear projects are queryable via the API. The agent can list issues in a project, add issues to a project, or update project-level settings.

How does OpenClaw handle Linear's team permissions? The agent uses your API key, which respects your Linear team memberships and permissions. If you don't have access to a team in Linear, the agent can't access it either.

Can I use OpenClaw to set Linear issue due dates? Yes. Linear supports due dates on issues via the API. The agent can set, query, and update due dates as part of any workflow.

Ready to try DenchClaw? Install in one command: npx denchclaw. Full setup guide →