Linear Issue Triage Automation

Set up an automation that triages new Linear issues — classifying, labeling, and suggesting owners automatically.

Prerequisites

Required integration

Linear MCP must be installed in Settings → MCP.

Information to collect

Ask the user for:

Teams/projects — which Linear teams or projects should be triaged (e.g. Engineering, Support)
Label taxonomy — what labels are used for classification? (e.g. bug, feature, support, chore)
Priority conventions — how does the team use priority levels? Any mapping rules?
Auto-apply or suggest — should the automation apply labels/priority/assignee directly, or post a triage comment with suggestions for human approval?
Duplicate detection — should it search for and flag potential duplicate issues?

Setup Workflow

Step 1 — Verify Linear MCP access

Confirm the Linear MCP integration is working:

Use the Linear MCP to list recent issues for one of the target teams.

If it fails, tell the user to install the Linear MCP integration first.

Step 2 — Determine trigger type

Event-based (recommended if publicly reachable): Check <RUNTIME_SERVICES> for deployment reachability. If public, recommend an event trigger on Linear Issue create events.

Cron-based (local/private deployments): Poll for recently created issues on a schedule (e.g. every 5 minutes).

Step 3 — Build the triage prompt

Construct a prompt that includes:

Target teams/projects
Label taxonomy and classification rules
Priority mapping conventions
Whether to auto-apply or suggest
Duplicate detection preference

Step 4 — Create the automation

Read the Automation backend URL and auth from <RUNTIME_SERVICES>:

Use the Automation backend url_from_agent as OPENHANDS_HOST
Auth: X-Session-API-Key: $OPENHANDS_AUTOMATION_API_KEY

Use the prompt preset endpoint:

curl -s -X POST "${OPENHANDS_HOST}/api/automation/v1/preset/prompt" \
  -H "X-Session-API-Key: $OPENHANDS_AUTOMATION_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "name": "Linear Issue Triage",
    "prompt": "<constructed triage prompt>",
    "trigger": <trigger config from step 2>
  }'

PowerShell note: use curl.exe for this exact flag syntax, and replace ${OPENHANDS_HOST} / $OPENHANDS_AUTOMATION_API_KEY with $env:OPENHANDS_HOST / $env:OPENHANDS_AUTOMATION_API_KEY if running it natively.

Step 5 — Confirm

Tell the user:

✅ Linear Issue Triage is running!

Automation ID: {id}

Teams: {team list}

Mode: {auto-apply or suggest}

Trigger: {trigger description}

linear-triage