Linear Release Action

GitHub Action for syncing deployments with Linear releases

Connect your deployments to Linear releases.
Automatically link issues to releases.

Important

Linear Release is in closed beta. Contact Linear support or your account manager to request access. APIs and commands may change.

Overview

This action wraps the Linear Release CLI to integrate your CI/CD pipeline with Linear's release management. It automatically scans commits for Linear issue identifiers, detects pull request references, and creates or updates releases in Linear.

For full documentation on pipeline types, how commit scanning works, path filtering details, and troubleshooting, see the Linear Release CLI README. This README covers the GitHub Action-specific configuration.

Quick Start

permissions:
  contents: read

steps:
  - uses: actions/checkout@v4
    with:
      fetch-depth: 0 # Required for commit history

  - uses: linear/linear-release-action@v0
    with:
      access_key: ${{ secrets.LINEAR_ACCESS_KEY }}

Inputs

Input	Required	Default	Description
access_key	Yes		Linear pipeline access key for authentication
command	No	sync	Command to run: sync, complete, or update
name	No		Custom release name for sync. Continuous pipelines: used on create. Scheduled pipelines: used only when sync creates a release; existing release names are preserved. Ignored (with warning) for complete and update.
version	No		Release version identifier (alias: release_version)
stage	No		Deployment stage such as staging or production (required for update)
include_paths	No		Filter commits by file paths (comma-separated globs for monorepos)
log_level	No		Log verbosity: quiet or verbose. Omit for default output.
cli_version	No	latest	Linear Release CLI version tag to install

cli_version defaults to latest, so the action automatically uses the newest CLI release. For reproducible builds, pin an exact tag (for example, v0.5.0). If stability is more important than automatic updates, prefer a pinned version.

Outputs

Output	Description
release-id	The Linear release ID
release-name	The Linear release name
release-version	The Linear release version
release-url	URL to the Linear release

Outputs are empty when no release is created (e.g. no matching commits found).

Using outputs

steps:
  - uses: actions/checkout@v4
    with:
      fetch-depth: 0

  - uses: linear/linear-release-action@v0
    id: release
    with:
      access_key: ${{ secrets.LINEAR_ACCESS_KEY }}

  - name: Use release outputs
    if: steps.release.outputs.release-url
    run: echo "Release URL is ${{ steps.release.outputs.release-url }}"

Commands

sync

Creates or updates a release by scanning commits for Linear issue identifiers.

- uses: linear/linear-release-action@v0
  with:
    access_key: ${{ secrets.LINEAR_ACCESS_KEY }}

complete

Marks the current release as complete. Only applicable to scheduled pipelines, as continuous pipelines create releases in the completed stage automatically.

- uses: linear/linear-release-action@v0
  with:
    access_key: ${{ secrets.LINEAR_ACCESS_KEY }}
    command: complete

update

Updates the deployment stage of the current release. Only applicable to scheduled pipelines, as continuous pipelines create releases in the completed stage automatically.

- uses: linear/linear-release-action@v0
  with:
    access_key: ${{ secrets.LINEAR_ACCESS_KEY }}
    command: update
    stage: staging

Command targeting

Command	With version	Without version
sync	Targets matching version or creates that version	Continuous pipelines create a release with short SHA name/version. Scheduled pipelines use current started/planned flow.
update	Updates that exact release version	Updates latest started release, or latest planned release if no started release exists
complete	Completes that exact release version	Completes latest started release

For scheduled pipelines, prefer always passing version in CI, especially when releases overlap.

Path filtering

Filter commits by file paths to track releases for specific packages, useful for monorepos:

- uses: linear/linear-release-action@v0
  with:
    access_key: ${{ secrets.LINEAR_ACCESS_KEY }}
    include_paths: apps/web/**,packages/shared/**

Troubleshooting

"Unsupported OS" or "Unsupported arch" error

The action only supports Linux x86_64 and macOS x86_64/arm64 runners. Windows is not supported.

"access_key input is required" error

Ensure you've set the access_key input with your Linear pipeline access key stored in GitHub Secrets.

Issues not being linked

Make sure your commits contain Linear issue identifiers (e.g., ENG-123) and that actions/checkout uses fetch-depth: 0.

name is ignored on non-sync commands

If name is provided with command: update or command: complete, the action prints a warning and continues. Use name with command: sync only.

License

MIT - see LICENSE