File
SMF·LINEAR
Received on
30.07.2026
Reviewed on
28.09.2026
Exhibits annexed
3
Questions
4

SMF·LINEAR

Can a prompt replace Linear?

Developer tools — issue tracking for software teams

Almost Verdict recorded on 28.09.2026 · Verified on 30.07.2026
Price
$10/moSource: linear.app · Checked on July 30, 2026
Per year
$120
Build time
A weekend
Votes
0 votes
YesAlmost (checked)Not yet

Exhibit tracking slip

Exhibit A The prompt
Exhibit B What you lose
Exhibit C Why people still pay: collaboration/sync/integrations
Exhibit Q Questions

Verdict

The object model is small: issues, states, labels, cycles, projects. A keyboard-first single-player tracker with a board, cycles, and one-way GitHub sync is a weekend build. What doesn't survive the copy is the sync engine, real-time multiplayer, and the integration surface — GitHub two-way, Slack, Figma, Sentry — that make Linear the place a team actually agrees on what's being built.

Exhibit B — What you lose

Exhibit A — The prompt

Received on30.07.2026
Build a personal issue tracker: issues get an auto-incrementing ID with a short team prefix, a Markdown body, a status (backlog through done or canceled), a priority, labels, and a point estimate. Make it keyboard-first: single-letter shortcuts for creating an issue and setting status, priority, and labels, full-text search across titles, bodies, and comments, and a command palette that reaches all of it without touching the mouse. Build three views: your issues, a drag-and-drop board by status, and the current cycle — a rolling two-week window with a burndown of remaining estimate, where unfinished issues roll forward automatically on the cycle's last day and finished ones archive. Add a one-way sync script that pulls open issues in from GitHub, keyed by issue number so re-running it updates existing issues instead of duplicating them. Add a shortcut that copies a suggested branch name for the selected issue to the clipboard.

Do not build real-time multiplayer, mobile apps, or writing back to GitHub — this runs on one machine for one person, and that's the honest, complete scope. Skip auth and deployment entirely.

Opening prefills the prompt — press enter to run it.

Exhibit B — What you lose

  • B.1 real-time multiplayer and the sub-100ms sync engine
  • B.2 native mobile and desktop apps
  • B.3 two-way integrations with GitHub, Slack, Figma, and Sentry
  • B.4 Triage, Insights, and Linear Asks
  • B.5 the interaction polish that makes people actually file the issue

Prior art

Exhibit C — Why people still pay: collaboration/sync/integrations

An issue tracker is only worth anything when everyone uses it, and people only use one that never makes them wait. Linear sells speed and shared context, not features — the whole team sees the same board update instantly, GitHub PRs close issues on merge, and the roadmap stays honest because filing is faster than complaining. A solo copy tracks your own work fine and settles no arguments.

Questions

Can I import my existing Linear issues?

Linear exports issues to CSV, and that data maps reasonably well onto this build's schema — labels, priorities, and cycle history need some manual reconciliation since the export format isn't a perfect match.

Will it work on my phone?

The board renders on a phone browser, but the whole point of this build is a keyboard-first workflow — that's genuinely a desktop experience, and there's no native mobile app.

What does it cost to run?

Hosting and a database, typically a few dollars a month — genuinely cheap since issue-tracking data is small.

What's the one thing that doesn't survive the rebuild?

Everyone else being on the same board. Real-time multiplayer and two-way GitHub sync are what make a tracker the place a team actually agrees on status; a personal single-player copy tracks your own work fine and settles no arguments with anyone else.

Receipt

Already built this yourself?