Linear MCP Server

linear MCP server based on mcp-go. Exposed over MCP by the linear mcp server, that capability becomes something an assistant can invoke while it works, not something you go and do afterwards.

What it actually does

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Linear, written in Go. This server provides tools for interacting with the Linear API through the MCP protocol.

• Create, update, and search Linear issues
• Get issues assigned to a user
• Add comments to issues and reply to existing comments
• URL-aware comment operations — - paste Linear comment URLs directly, no manual ID extraction needed
• Retrieve team information
• Rate-limited API requests to respect Linear's API limits

Its toolset

Everything the assistant can do here goes through one of these:

• Automated — The Automated tool exposed by this server
• linear_create_issue — Creates a new Linear issue with specified details. Supports creating parent-child relationships (sub-issues) and assigning labels
• linear_update_issue — The linear_update_issue tool exposed by this server
• linear_search_issues — The linear_search_issues tool exposed by this server
• linear_get_user_issues — Retrieves issues assigned to a specific user or the authenticated user
• linear_get_issue — The linear_get_issue tool exposed by this server
• linear_add_comment — Adds a comment to an existing Linear issue. Supports replying to existing comments by passing a comment identifier in the thread parameter
• linear_reply_to_comment — Convenience tool for replying to an existing comment. Automatically resolves the issue from the comment, so you only need to provide the comment
• linear_get_issue_comments — Retrieves comments for a Linear issue with support for pagination and thread navigation
• linear_update_issue_comment — The linear_update_issue_comment tool exposed by this server
• linear_get_teams — The linear_get_teams tool exposed by this server

Adding it to your client

Setup follows the usual MCP pattern — install or clone the server, register it in your client's configuration file, restart the client.

Configuration

You will need 3 environment variables: LINEAR_API_KEY, DOWNLOAD_URL, TEST_LINEAR_API_KEY. The server will not start without them, which is usually why the tools fail to appear on a first run. Keep credentials in your client's env block or a secrets manager rather than in a file you might commit.

• Go 1.23 or higher - Linear API key

When to reach for it

This sits in the planning and project tracking group, where several servers overlap in what they claim to do but differ sharply once you actually set them up. Linear's toolset — Automated, linear_create_issue, linear_update_issue and 8 more — is a fair guide to whether it matches your workflow. It is maintained by geropl; worth a glance at recent repository activity before you build anything load-bearing on it.

SyncDev reviews every entry in this directory against the project's own documentation before publishing, and revisits them as servers change.

Caveats

• It runs with your machine's permissions. That is convenient and also the reason to think about what you point it at before you approve a tool call.
• With 11 tools registered it takes up a noticeable share of the context window; turn it off in projects that never touch Linear.
• Missing credentials fail quietly in some clients — if no tools show up, check the environment block first.
• MCP clients confirm each tool call by default. Leave that on until you have watched what the linear mcp server does with a few real requests.