linear-tui

The user reads and triages Linear in linear-tui, a terminal UI. Its CLI shows you what is on their screen and acts on Linear with their credentials — no Linear MCP server or separate sign-in is needed.

Find out what "this" is

Run linear-tui context before guessing. It prints, as Markdown:

• - Showing: — the page: team or view, then project or cycle, then issue;
• ## Open issue — the issue open in the detail view, if any;
• the list on screen, numbered in display order, with ← cursor on the row the user has selected (on an issue page, the list it was opened from);
• whether linear-tui is still open. A closed instance's view may be stale — say so if you rely on it.

"The top three" means rows 1–3 of that list; "this one" is the open issue, or else the row under the cursor. Inside a worktree whose branch names an issue, the context starts with that issue. Use --json when you need exact fields.

Read and act

Task	Command
List issues	linear-tui issue list --team ENG (--preset backlog|all), --mine, --view "…", --project "…", --team ENG --cycle current; narrow with --status, --priority, --query
Search	linear-tui issue search "checkout" [--team ENG]
Read an issue	linear-tui issue show ENG-42
Comment	linear-tui issue comment ENG-42 - (body on stdin)
Reply in a thread	linear-tui issue comment ENG-42 - --reply-to <comment-id>
Fix or remove your comment	linear-tui issue comment edit ENG-42 <comment-id> -, … comment delete ENG-42 <comment-id>
Change its state	linear-tui issue status ENG-42 "In Review"
Edit it	linear-tui issue update ENG-42 --title "…" --description - --priority low --assignee me --estimate 3 --label Bug --unlabel UI --project "…" --cycle current --parent ENG-30 (any of them; none empties a field)
File an issue	linear-tui issue create --team ENG --title "…" --description - (and the same fields as update)
File under a milestone	--project "…" --milestone "Beta" on create or update
Projects	linear-tui project list --team ENG, project show "…", project create --team ENG --name "…", project update "…" --status "In Progress" --target 2026-12-01, project update "…" --content - (its body; --description is the one-line summary), project delete "…"
Milestones	linear-tui milestone list "<project>", milestone create "<project>" --name Beta --target 2026-11-01, milestone update "<project>" Beta --name …, milestone delete "<project>" Beta
A team's states, members, labels	linear-tui team show ENG (team list for the teams)
Cycles, views, favorites	linear-tui cycle list --team ENG, view list, favorite list

<ID> may be an identifier in any case or an issue URL. issue show gives each comment an - Id: line to address an edit or reply at. Errors go to stderr with a non-zero exit; an unknown name lists what is valid, an ambiguous one the candidates. Only a comment's author can edit or delete it. Whatever the TUI does, a command does too: never call Linear's API directly, or drive the TUI to do what a command can. Long bodies go on stdin as Markdown. Deleting a project or milestone needs the user's word, like any other change.

Work the TUI itself

When the user wants to see something, or you want to check linear-tui by using it, drive the running instance the way a person does:

Task	Command
Read the screen: focus, what is open, keys and commands here	linear-tui tui screen
Press keys	linear-tui tui press "j <Enter>" (<Esc>, <C-k>, <S-Tab>, …)
Run a palette command	linear-tui tui run "Change status"
Type into the focused field	linear-tui tui type "In Review"
Show an issue	linear-tui tui open ENG-42

Each answers with the screen it leads to; read it before the next step. A chord is two keys (g m). With no linear-tui open, linear-tui --headless runs one only you can see. Keys and commands change issues exactly as the user's would, so the rules below hold here too.

Rules

• Without an instruction to change an issue, only comment on it.
• Move or edit an issue — to Done, a new title, anything else — only when the user asks.
• Edit or delete only the comments you were asked to.
• Quote the identifier (ENG-42) when you report what you did.

The full output formats are in docs/cli.md of the linear-tui repository.