Link Linear Issues With Test Manager

What Can You Link a Linear Issue To?

Linking works at four levels, which matters because a failure is rarely about a whole test case. The step that broke is usually the thing the bug describes.

• Test case - the issue follows the case itself, wherever it is run.
• Test run - the issue belongs to one execution of a set of cases.
• Test run instance - the issue attaches to one case inside one run, which is where most triage lands.
• Individual step - the issue points at the exact step that failed.

The relationship is many-to-many in both directions. One Linear issue can be linked to any number of test cases, runs, and instances, and one test artifact can carry any number of Linear issues. Linking the same issue to the same artifact twice does not create a duplicate, so repeated linking during a triage session is safe.

How Do You Link a Linear Issue?

Connect Linear to your account first. Until it is connected, Linear cannot be selected as a source, and the Link Issue dialog shows the connection state of each tracker so you can see why. The setup steps are in the documentation on Linear app integration.

• Open the Issues tab inside a test case or a test run and click Link Issue.
• Select Linear as the source.
• Enter the Linear issue ID or paste its URL, then click Link Issue.

One boundary governs what you can find: searching and linking are limited to the Linear projects selected during setup. Issues from any other project are not returned, so an issue that will not appear is usually a scope question rather than a search problem.

What Does a Linked Issue Show?

A linked issue lists its title, identifier, issue type, status, priority, creation date, and creator, and clicking it opens the issue directly in Linear.

The detail that changes how much you can trust the view: Test Manager does not store any of these fields. They are fetched from Linear every time you open the test case, test run, or instance, so the status beside a failing test is the status in Linear at that moment, not a copy taken when someone linked it. Stale defect status is the usual reason a traceability report has to be re-checked by hand, and this removes that step.

Linked issues are grouped by tracker, so Linear issues sit under Linear alongside any Jira or Azure DevOps issues on the same test artifact. A search box and Status and Issue Type filters narrow a long list, which matters on a run that accumulated issues across several triage passes. For the wider practice this supports, the guide to defect management covers how defect records and test evidence fit together.

What Happens When Linear Changes?

Because the details are fetched rather than stored, the useful question is what you see when Linear cannot answer. Each situation has a defined behaviour.

The disconnect row is the one worth noting before an integration change. Links are not destroyed when the connection drops, they stop being displayed, and reconnecting the same workspace and the same projects brings them back.

How Does Unlinking Work?

The unlink button sits on the right side of each linked issue. Unlinking removes the association in Test Manager only, and the issue itself stays in Linear, so clearing a wrong link during triage carries no risk to the tracker.

That separation is what makes linking cheap to use. An issue linked to the wrong instance can be removed and relinked to the right one without touching the Linear record, and a tester who links generously during a run is not creating cleanup work for whoever writes the release report. The structure of the artifacts being linked is covered in the test case guide.

Conclusion

Connect Linear, then link at the instance or step level on your next failing run rather than at the case level, because that is where the issue and the evidence actually correspond. The full reference is in the documentation on link Linear issues with Test Manager.

Linear joins Jira and Azure DevOps as a tracker you can trace from inside Test Manager, which keeps requirements, cases, runs, and defects in one workspace. If you also log new bugs to Linear from a run, the earlier walkthrough on bug tracking with the Linear app covers that side of the integration.