linear-sop

name	linear-sop
description	Ticket management best practices for Linear or equivalent project tracker. Use when creating issues, updating ticket status, attaching evidence, parsing acceptance criteria, or working with ticket UUIDs. Provides evidence templates for dev/staging/done phases.

Linear SOP Skill

TEMPLATE: This skill uses {{PLACEHOLDER}} tokens. Replace with your project values before use.

Purpose

Guide consistent ticket management. Provides evidence templates for the mandatory dev/staging/UAT evidence policy.

When This Skill Applies

• Creating new issues in the ticket system
• Updating ticket status
• Attaching evidence to tickets
• Parsing acceptance criteria
• Working with UUIDs and issue IDs

Ticket System Operations

Reading Issues

# Get issue by identifier
get_issue({ id: "{{TICKET_PREFIX}}-459" })

# List issues with filters
list_issues({
  team: "{{PROJECT_TEAM_NAME}}",
  state: "In Progress",
  assignee: "me",
})

Creating Issues

create_issue({
  title: "feat(scope): description",
  team: "{{PROJECT_TEAM_NAME}}",
  description: "## Summary\n\n...",
  labels: ["feature", "sprint-1"],
  parentId: "parent-uuid",  // Optional - for sub-issues
})

Updating Issues

update_issue({
  id: "{{TICKET_PREFIX}}-459",
  state: "Done",
})

Adding Comments

create_comment({
  issueId: "{{TICKET_PREFIX}}-459",
  body: "**Dev Evidence**\n\n...",
})

Program Structure

For work that spans many issues, most trackers have objects above the issue. Use them; do not flatten a program into a flat list of tickets.

The Hierarchy

Initiative          the program (one per program)
  └── Project       a Unit of Work — one coherent outcome
       ├── Milestone    an AI-DLC phase: Inception, Construction, Operations
       └── Issue        a Story
            └── Sub-issue   a Mob Elaboration task (created during Inception, not before)

Prerequisite: labels must already exist

Program build-out assumes these label namespaces are pre-created in the workspace. Create them before building the program, not during:

• bolt:0 … bolt:N — which Bolt an issue belongs to
• agent:* — the lead role (must match an actual agent role defined for the project)

Where the tracker scopes labels globally, do not create per-team duplicates.

Streams

Some trackers gate sub-initiatives behind a paid tier. Where sub-initiatives are available, model program streams as sub-initiatives under the initiative. Where they are not, encode the stream as project priority instead — highest-risk stream gets Urgent/High, follow-up stream gets Medium. Both are valid; pick based on what your tracker supports.

Dependency Wiring

Build the dependency DAG with issue relations:

update_issue({
  id: "{{TICKET_PREFIX}}-XXX",
  blocks: ["{{TICKET_PREFIX}}-YYY"],       // this issue must land first
  blockedBy: ["{{TICKET_PREFIX}}-ZZZ"],    // this issue waits on that one
})

Use relatedTo for soft links that inform but do not block.

Wire so the enforcement lands before the thing it enforces — see the safe-ai-dlc skill for the four dependency-wiring heuristics.

Re-parenting existing issues

When a program absorbs tickets that already exist, update them into the project — never recreate them. Duplicates break traceability and split the evidence trail.

Evidence Policy (MUST)

Every issue requires evidence at each phase:

Phase	Required?	Content
Dev	MUST	Implementation proof
Staging	MUST	UAT validation (or N/A)
Done	MUST	Final verification

Evidence Templates

Dev Evidence Template

**Dev Evidence**

**PR**: https://github.com/{{ORG_NAME}}/{{REPO_NAME}}/pull/XXX
**Commit**: [short-hash]
**Branch**: {{TICKET_PREFIX}}-XXX-description

**Implementation:**
- [x] Feature implemented
- [x] Tests passing
- [x] Lint passing

**Verification:**
{{CI_VALIDATE_COMMAND}}
# Output: All checks passed

Staging/UAT Evidence Template

**Staging Evidence**

**Environment**: {{STAGING_ENV_NAME}}
**URL**: {{STAGING_URL}}

**Validation Steps:**
1. Deployed to staging: [timestamp]
2. Smoke test passed: [yes/no]
3. Feature verified: [description]

**UAT Status:** [Passed/Pending/N/A]

If N/A, reason: [e.g., "Dev tooling only - no user-facing changes"]

Done Evidence Template

**Done Evidence**

**PR Merged**: https://github.com/{{ORG_NAME}}/{{REPO_NAME}}/pull/XXX
**Merge Commit**: [hash]

**Final Checklist:**
- [x] All acceptance criteria met
- [x] Documentation updated (if applicable)
- [x] No regressions detected

Acceptance Criteria Parsing

When reading issue descriptions, extract ACs:

## Acceptance Criteria
- [ ] User can perform action X
- [ ] System responds with Y
- [ ] Error handling for Z

Convert to testable checklist for verification.

Status Workflow

Backlog -> Ready -> In Progress -> Testing -> Ready for Review -> Done

GitHub-Linear Auto-Sync

Tickets referenced in commit messages (e.g., [{{TICKET_PREFIX}}-123]) automatically move to Done when the PR merges. Child stories not referenced in any commit message must be manually closed after merge.

Best practice: Reference Feature-level tickets in commit messages. After merge, manually close orphaned child stories that were not referenced.

Status Update Guidelines

From	To	When
Backlog	Ready	Sprint planning
Ready	In Progress	Work starts
In Progress	Testing	PR created
Testing	Ready for Review	Tests pass, UAT complete
Ready for Review	Done	POPM approval or auto-sync via PR

UUID Handling

Most ticket systems use UUIDs internally. When working with APIs:

// Issue identifiers (human-readable)
const issueId = "{{TICKET_PREFIX}}-459";

// UUIDs (API operations)
const uuid = "ef6a5fa0-2b46-417f-8266-dea2d187b10a";

// Get UUID from identifier via API
// Returns issue object with .id property containing UUID

Common Operations

Link PR to Issue

PRs are automatically linked when:

• Branch name contains {{TICKET_PREFIX}}-XXX
• PR title contains [{{TICKET_PREFIX}}-XXX]

Create Sub-Issue

create_issue({
  title: "Sub-task description",
  team: "{{PROJECT_TEAM_NAME}}",
  parentId: "parent-issue-uuid",
})

Query by Label

list_issues({
  label: "sprint-1",
  team: "{{PROJECT_TEAM_NAME}}",
})

Authoritative References

• Agent Workflow SOP: docs/sop/AGENT_WORKFLOW_SOP.md
• CONTRIBUTING.md: Workflow documentation