Linear Pipeline

The Linear Pipeline is an autonomous workflow that takes a Linear ticket and delivers a reviewed GitHub pull request -- with minimal human intervention. It handles everything from ticket classification to code generation, verification, PR creation, and review iteration.

How It Works

The pipeline runs a 10-step orchestration:

Step 1: Triage

The system receives a Linear ticket and classifies it:

• Bug -- Includes error reproduction context
• Feature -- Includes acceptance criteria
• Chore -- Includes scope boundaries
• Refactor -- Includes before/after expectations

A type-specific prompt is built for the agent.

Step 2: Preflight Check

Before starting work, the system verifies:

• The workspace directory is clean (no uncommitted changes)
• The target branch doesn't already exist
• Required tools (git, GitHub CLI) are available

Step 3: Create Branch

A branch is automatically created from the issue slug (e.g., fix/login-timeout-error).

Step 4: Agent Execution

The AI agent runs in two phases:

1. Planning phase (10-minute timeout) -- Agent analyzes the ticket and creates an execution plan
2. Execution phase (10-minute timeout) -- Agent implements the solution with file changes and tool use

Step 5: Verification

The code is verified with automated checks:

• Lint -- Code style validation
• Type-check -- TypeScript compilation
• Retry loop -- Up to 3 automatic fix attempts if checks fail

Step 6: Self-Review

The agent performs a diff analysis of its own changes before creating a PR, checking for:

• Completeness against the original ticket
• Code quality issues
• Unintended changes

Step 7: Create PR

A GitHub pull request is created with:

• Descriptive title and body linking to the Linear ticket
• Targeted git staging (filters out sensitive files like .env, .key, .pem)
• Self-review findings included in the PR description

Step 8: PR Review Loop

The pipeline monitors for review feedback:

• Polls every 5 minutes for new review comments
• 24-hour window for the review cycle
• Up to 10 fix iterations responding to reviewer feedback
• Automatically pushes fixes and requests re-review

Step 9: Slack Notification

A Slack message is sent to your configured channel:

• Links to the PR for human review
• Summary of what was done
• Request for final approval

Step 10: Update Linear

The Linear ticket is updated:

• Status changed to "In Review"
• PR link posted as a comment
• Metadata updated

Webhook Processing

The pipeline can receive Linear tickets via webhooks with defense-in-depth security:

Trigger Modes

Configuration

Configure the pipeline in Settings > Connectors:

Linear Settings

• API Key -- For reading tickets and updating status
• Webhook Secret -- For verifying incoming webhooks
• Team ID -- Which Linear team to monitor
• Assignee Filter -- Only process tickets assigned to specific users
• Poll Interval -- How often to check for new tickets (polling mode)

GitHub Settings

• Personal Access Token -- For creating branches and PRs

Slack Settings

• Webhook URL -- For sending notifications
• Channel -- Where to post updates

Pipeline Settings

• Workspace Directory -- Where code changes happen
• Default Branch -- Base branch for new branches (e.g., main)
• Auto-Process -- Whether to start automatically on new tickets

All credentials are stored encrypted using AES-256-GCM with per-field unique IVs and PBKDF2-SHA512 key derivation.

Timeouts and Limits

Error Handling

The pipeline handles errors at each phase:

• Phase-level retries -- Each step can retry on transient failures
• State persistence -- Pipeline state saved to disk for recovery
• Graceful degradation -- If Slack fails, the PR is still created
• Logging -- Comprehensive logging for debugging

Learn More

• Agent System -- How the agent executes tasks
• Workspace Security -- How the workspace is protected
• Desktop Application -- Overview and setup