How to Use Linear to Run a Product Launch With Engineering

The short answer: if marketing and engineering share a Slack workspace and a launch date, run the launch as one Linear project with a Marketing team contributing to it; the first launch fits the free plan's 250 issues and 2 teams, and the third team onward costs $10 per user a month on Basic billed yearly (pricing, checked on 5 November 2026). Create the Marketing team, save a launch template with milestones, add marketing's issues to the engineering project, route requests from Slack into Triage, let Linear Agent draft the weekly update for the lead to approve, and read milestone progress instead of asking for it.

Disclosure: I may earn a commission through some links on this site. It does not change what this page says.

A launch has two calendars, engineering's and marketing's, and the week they drift apart is the week nobody notices. Linear's answer is one project with both teams on it, one lead who posts the update, and milestones whose percentage comes from the issues underneath them. Plans and limits are in the Linear entry.

Before you start:

1. The issue budget. For example, a launch with 5 milestones of 12 issues each is 5 x 12 = 60 issues, so four launches fit under the free plan's 250 before Basic is needed (pricing).
2. What you bring. The launch date, the engineering project that already exists, the Slack channel, and the checklist from the last launch, which becomes the template.
3. The measure. Milestones completed on their dates, and the number of launch-week surprises that arrive in Triage. Write down last launch's count first.

What you need

• Admin rights in the workspace: teams, templates and Slack are admin settings.
• The Slack integration, connected once by an admin (Slack).
• Business only if an agency needs a guest seat or requests should arrive by email (pricing, checked on 5 November 2026).

Step 1: Create the Marketing team

In Settings, under Your teams, choose Join or create a team (teams). Linear's guide for startups says to mirror the org chart with a team per function and gives Marketing as an example, with "Marketing / Customer Story Launch" as a sample project (startups guide). Then open Team Settings, Triage, and switch Triage on; it is off by default (triage).

Step 2: Save the launch as a project template

A project template prefills the name and description, the teams, status, lead and members, the initiative, the milestones and the issues with their sub-issues, and a team can mark one template as its default (project templates). Put last launch's checklist in as issues under five milestones, such as positioning, assets, enablement, announcement and the week after. Keep each issue a task with a visible outcome and a short title, which is the Method's rule for issues (write issues).

Step 3: Join the engineering project rather than starting a second one

A project can be shared across teams: one lead team sets its statuses, the others contribute, and the project view gains a tab per team (projects). Add Marketing to the existing engineering project and apply your issues there. One project, one lead, one target date. If the date is uncertain, set it by month or quarter, which the project supports.

Step 4: Hang the dates on milestones

Linear's planning guide says to map the deadlines onto milestones first and then add issues under each, using those to set due dates (project planning). A milestone's progress starts when its first issue moves to a started status and rises as issues complete (milestones). Marketing's milestones sit on the same timeline as engineering's, so a slipped build moves the announcement in the same view.

Step 5: Route requests from Slack into Triage

Teammates mention @Linear in a channel, or use the Create new issue action on a message, and the resulting thread stays synced with the issue's comments; an admin can offer up to 10 issue templates in Slack (Slack). Issues created through an integration land in the team's Triage, where they are accepted, declined, marked duplicate or snoozed before they reach the board (triage). On Business, Asks adds an email intake address and triage rules that set team, label and priority by condition (Asks).

Step 6: Let Linear Agent draft the update, and approve it

Press Cmd or Ctrl + J, or mention @Linear in a comment, and ask: "Draft this week's project update for the launch: milestone progress, issues that moved to started or done, Triage items open longer than three days, and the two biggest risks." Drafting stakeholder updates is one of the uses Linear documents, and the agent only reads what your own permissions allow (Linear Agent). The human check: the project lead reads the draft, corrects it, picks On track, At risk or Off track and posts; only the person who posted an update can edit it afterwards, and the reminder for the next one goes to the lead alone (updates).

To run that draft unattended, a Loop fires on a weekly schedule and can post to Slack, with MCP tool calls held for approval unless you trust a tool outright (Loops). Each run draws $0.07 to $0.20 from a prepaid balance that only an admin can top up, with a $10 minimum and funds that expire 12 months after purchase (AI credits). The agent in the app is included in every plan; the unattended version is where Linear earns beyond the seat, and one scheduled run a week is the whole need here. If the lead works in Claude instead, the MCP server's read-only endpoint hands the same report over without write access (MCP server).

Step 7: Read progress instead of asking for it

The project overview shows each milestone's completion, Pulse collects every project update into a feed with a summary in your inbox around 6:00 AM local time, and both are on every plan (Pulse). For a report outside Linear, the Google Sheets integration refreshes a sheet of issues, projects and initiatives hourly when something changed, from public teams only (Google Sheets). A member can also export up to 250 issues at a time as CSV from any view (exporting).

What Linear's docs warn about

• Guests cost a seat. They are billed as members, see only their teams, and exist on Business and Enterprise (members and roles).
• Cycles roll over. Unfinished issues move to the next cycle by themselves, and Start cycle today cannot be undone (cycles).
• Zapier is the creator. Issues made through a Zap show Zapier as the author (Zapier).
• The source sheet is overwritten. Analyse in a copy, never in the synced Google Sheet (Google Sheets).
• Free is a hard stop. Past 250 issues on Free, no new issue can be created until the plan changes (billing).

FAQ

Can an agency join the launch project?

Yes, as guests on Business or Enterprise: they see only the teams they are added to, they cannot see initiatives, and each guest is billed like a member (members and roles).

Does a marketing team need cycles?

No. Cycles are switched on per team and suit recurring work; a launch lives on its project and milestones (cycles).

Can Claude post the project update itself?

The MCP server's write tools can create and update issues, projects and comments (MCP server). Keep the update with a person anyway: the lead's name is on it, and only that person can edit it later.