Linear Integration for Product Teams

How Does Ship Connect Product Discovery to Development?

Linear is where your development work lives. Ship is where product opportunities are discovered. Our Linear integration bridges these two worlds seamlessly.

Import feedback from Linear issues. Export opportunities as Linear issues. Close the loop between what customers need and what gets built.

What Does the Two-Way Workflow Look Like?

Linear → Ship: Import Signals

Your Linear backlog contains valuable product signals: feature requests from customers, bug reports, and improvement ideas. Ship imports these as signals and clusters them with feedback from other sources.

This gives you a unified view of customer needs, whether they came from:

• A Linear issue from your support team
• A Slack message from a customer
• A feature request from sales

Ship → Linear: Create Issues

When you’ve identified an opportunity worth building, create a Linear issue directly from Ship. The issue is pre-populated with:

• Title and description from the opportunity
• Customer evidence: Actual quotes from users
• Signal count: How many customers mentioned this
• Context: Where the feedback came from
• Link to Ship: For full details

No more copying and pasting. No more losing context between tools.

How It Works

1. Connect Linear

Click “Connect Linear” in Ship’s integrations panel. Authenticate with your Linear account using Linear’s OAuth integration and select which teams to sync.

2. Configure Import

Choose what to import:

• All issues or specific labels only
• Specific priorities
• Date range for initial import

3. Review Clustered Opportunities

Ship combines Linear issues with signals from other sources. You’ll see opportunities with evidence from multiple channels, giving you a complete picture of customer demand.

4. Create Issues When Ready

Found an opportunity worth pursuing? Click “Create Linear issue” to send it to your development backlog with full context. Or hand it off to an AI coding assistant for even faster implementation.

Why Does Bridging Linear and Ship Matter?

Before Ship

1. Customer reports issue in Slack
2. Support creates Linear issue (loses context)
3. PM reads issue, doesn't see related feedback
4. Feature gets deprioritized (seems like one person's request)
5. More customers report same issue
6. Cycle repeats

With Ship

1. Customer reports issue in Slack → Signal captured
2. Support creates Linear issue → Also captured
3. Ship clusters both → Shows 2 signals, same opportunity
4. More feedback arrives → Opportunity grows
5. PM sees true demand → Prioritizes correctly
6. Creates Linear issue with all evidence
7. Dev has full context → Builds the right thing

Integration Features

Smart Issue Creation

When creating a Linear issue from Ship, you can:

• Choose the team from your connected teams
• Set priority based on signal strength
• Add labels automatically or manually
• Include all evidence or selected quotes
• Link to opportunity for reference

Automatic Context

Every issue created includes:

## Overview
[Opportunity description]

## Evidence (12 signals)
- "Can't export data to our BI tool" - Customer A
- "Need CSV export for finance team" - Customer B
- "Would love to download reports" - Customer C
[...]

---
Created from Ship · View full opportunity

Team Mapping

Map Ship workspaces to Linear teams:

• Engineering team for technical features
• Design team for UX improvements
• Platform team for infrastructure requests

Best Practices

Use Labels Consistently

Create a consistent labeling system in Linear:

• customer-request for feedback-driven issues
• ship-opportunity for issues created from Ship
• Customer tier labels for prioritization

Review Before Creating

Ship surfaces opportunities, but use judgment before creating issues:

• Is this strategically aligned?
• Do we have enough evidence?
• Is the timing right?

Keep Context Flowing

When issues are completed in Linear, check the related opportunity in Ship. Are there follow-up signals? Did the solution fully address the need?

Comparison: Ship vs. Native Linear

Getting Started

1. Connect: Link your Linear account in Ship settings
2. Select teams: Choose which teams to sync
3. Initial sync: Import recent issues as signals
4. Monitor: New issues sync automatically
5. Create: Send opportunities to Linear when ready

The integration takes about 2 minutes to set up. Your first clustered opportunities appear within the hour.