Linear

Linear is an issue-tracking and project-management tool built by Linear Orbit Inc. specifically for software teams. It ranks around #18 among collaboration tools with roughly 3.7% usage share, but punches well above that among modern startups thanks to its reputation for speed and polish. Teams adopt it for its keyboard-first UI, opinionated workflows (no endless field customization), and tight two-way sync with GitHub/GitLab pull requests.

Example

Linear exposes a full GraphQL API. This query fetches the open issues assigned to the current user, ordered by priority — a common call for building a personal dashboard or CLI integration.

# POST https://api.linear.app/graphql
# Header: Authorization: <your Linear API key>

query MyOpenIssues {
  viewer {
    assignedIssues(
      filter: { state: { type: { in: ["started", "unstarted"] } } }
      orderBy: priority
    ) {
      nodes {
        id
        identifier
        title
        priority
        state { name }
        team { key }
      }
    }
  }
}

Getting started

Sign up at linear.app with your email or Google/GitHub account, create a workspace, and invite teammates. For API access, generate a personal API key from Settings → API, then call the GraphQL endpoint directly.

# quick curl test of the Linear GraphQL API
curl -s https://api.linear.app/graphql \
  -H "Authorization: $LINEAR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query":"{ viewer { name email } }"}'