SMF·LINEAR
Can a prompt replace Linear?
Developer tools — issue tracking for software teams
Exhibit tracking slip
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 A — The prompt
Received on30.07.2026Build 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
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.
Related tools
Receipt