Main concepts

Ticket (or Issue): A small task that should take less than a day to complete, if it’s bigger, break it down into smaller tasks.
Project: A larger piece of work with a clear goal and end date, for example, launching a new feature.
Initiative: An ongoing focus area that includes multiple projects, for example, improving user onboarding.
Label: A way to tag tickets with extra context, like which part of the business they relate to.
Sprint (or Cycle): A one-week block of work where we aim to finish assigned tasks, instead of setting individual due dates, we assign tasks to a sprint.
- Sprint timing: Sprints start every Tuesday, we name each sprint using the week number and year, for example, the first week of 2025 is 01 25.
Roadmap: we don’t have Roadmaps in linear, these are initiatives that can be configured to show timelines. We have a quarterly initiative that sets the roadmap.

Ticket Statuses

As work progresses, tickets move through different stages:

Triage: The ticket has been raised, but it needs more information, like priority, owner, or sprint, before it can move forward.
Backlog: The ticket will be worked on in the future, but it’s not yet scheduled into a sprint.
To Do: The ticket is ready to be started.
In Progress: You’re actively working on it, and expect to finish it today.
Blocked: You’re waiting on something before you can continue, add a comment explaining what’s blocking it.
Awaiting Review (engineering only): A Pull Request has been opened, and the work needs to be reviewed before it can be released
Testing: The work is ready to be tested to confirm it’s production-ready. Take sure to tag the person you want to review the work.
Sign Off: The work has been approved, but the assignee may need to take final actions before marking it as done.
Done: The task is completed and no longer needs attention.
Cancelled: The ticket will not be worked on, because it’s no longer relevant or is a duplicate.

If you’re working on something, **it must be in linear. **Not doing this creates duplicate work, confusion and “follow-ups” for clarifications.
Follow our principle of high-context communication and avoid discussing privately on Slack, discuss on the ticket or link the ticket to the conversation so it syncs to the ticket.

You’ve given feedback on a ticket, do you move it back to To do?

I have now addressed all sub-tickets after feedback, what should I do?

I have a feature idea but it’s not crucial right now, where should it go?