Is Linear Down? How to Tell and What to Do

Is Linear Down? How to Tell and What to Do

Linear is the issue tracker for engineering teams that move fast — sprints, cycles, triage queues, and roadmaps all live there. When Linear degrades, your team's coordination breaks silently: tickets stop loading, syncs hang, webhooks miss.

The fastest way to know: Statusfield monitors Linear continuously and alerts you within minutes. Without monitoring, you find out about Linear outages when your team is already blocked.

Common Signs of a Linear Outage

How to Confirm It's Linear, Not You

Before blaming the network or your browser:

1. Check Linear's API directly

curl -I https://api.linear.app/graphql

A 200 or 405 response means the API endpoint is reachable. A 502, 503, or connection timeout indicates a platform issue.

2. Test in an incognito window

Browser extensions or cached sessions can cause issues that look like outages. Open Linear in an incognito/private window to eliminate local state.

3. Verify which feature is affected

Linear has distinct systems for issue viewing, comments, search, and integrations. A degraded search index doesn't mean the write API is broken. Isolate which action is failing before escalating.

4. Check Linear's GitHub integration separately

Linear ↔ GitHub syncs run through a separate integration pipeline. If GitHub PR links aren't updating but Linear itself loads fine, the issue is the integration layer, not Linear's core.

The Problem With Vendor Status Pages

The instinct during an incident is to check Linear's own status page. The problem: status pages are updated manually — typically 15–30 minutes after the incident starts, well after your team is already blocked.

Engineering coordination outages compound fast: the longer your team can't triage or update tickets, the more context is lost to Slack threads, DMs, and verbal handoffs that never get recorded.

Statusfield monitors Linear continuously and fires alerts the moment it detects a degradation — before your standup turns into a debugging session.

What to Do During a Linear Outage

Immediate (first 5 minutes)

1. Identify the affected surface — is it reading (issues won't load), writing (saves fail), or integrations (GitHub/Slack sync broken)? Each has a different workaround.
2. Establish a temporary coordination channel — if Linear is fully down, designate a Slack channel or shared doc as the incident coordination point so work isn't blocked.
3. Note the exact start time — critical for reconciling any tickets or updates that need to be re-entered after recovery.
4. Check if API access still works — Linear's API sometimes stays partially functional when the web app is degraded; CLI tools or integrations may still operate.

Communication (first 15 minutes)

• Alert your engineering team that Linear is degraded so they stop retrying and wasting time.
• If a sprint cycle is closing or planning is in progress, defer the ceremony until Linear recovers — partial data is worse than no data.
• Capture any critical decisions being made verbally so they can be entered into Linear once it recovers.

Recovery

• After Linear recovers, verify that any comments or updates submitted during the degradation were actually saved — some may have silently failed.
• Check GitHub ↔ Linear sync to confirm no PR → issue links were dropped during the outage window.
• Review webhook logs if your team uses Linear webhooks to trigger automation.

Linear Components and What Each Outage Looks Like

Why DIY Monitoring Misses Real Linear Failures

Checking whether linear.app responds with a 200 isn't sufficient:

• Partial degradation — Linear's write API can fail while the read path stays operational; a reachability check sees "green" while your team can't update tickets.
• Integration pipeline failures — GitHub sync runs on a separate backend; the main app can be healthy while webhooks are silently dropping.
• Background job failures — cycle progress calculations and notification delivery run asynchronously; they can fail without affecting app reachability.
• Intermittent errors — some Linear degradations manifest as increased error rates on specific operations, not full unavailability; simple uptime checks miss these entirely.

Effective Linear monitoring checks the write path and integration health, not just whether the homepage loads.

Monitor Linear Before Your Team Gets Blocked

Statusfield monitors Linear and 1,700+ other services continuously. When something degrades, you get alerted — not after your team has lost an hour to coordination chaos.

3 monitors, 10 alerts/month, no credit card required.

FAQ

Is Linear down right now?

Statusfield monitors Linear continuously and will tell you before your team loses coordination. If issues aren't loading or saves are silently failing, check Statusfield for real-time status.

Why won't Linear save my comments?

If comments or status changes aren't saving, Linear's write API is likely degraded. Check api.linear.app reachability. The read path (viewing issues) often stays up while writes fail.

How long do Linear outages last?

Most incidents resolve within 30 minutes to 2 hours. Integration pipeline degradations (GitHub, Slack) can persist slightly longer.

How do I get alerted when Linear goes down?

Statusfield monitors Linear continuously and fires alerts the moment it detects a degradation. Every plan starts with a free trial — no credit card required.