Migration guide
Migrate from Linear to Planoda
Linear and Planoda share a fast, keyboard-first philosophy, which makes this one of the smoothest migrations. This guide covers exporting your teams and issues, preserving cycles and estimates, and switching over with your workflows intact.
Updated
Should you move?
Linear is excellent, and we'll say so plainly — its speed and craft set the bar. Teams move when they outgrow engineering-only scope: when ops, support, and marketing need to live on the same schema, when boards for non-engineers matter, or when they want governance-first AI agents under propose/approve rather than a tracker that stays a tracker. The model maps almost one-to-one, so the move is mostly confirmation.
Migration in short
- Migrating from Linear to Planoda is a 7-step path: export, map, import, verify, then cut over.
- Start by exporting from Linear — Export from Linear, then map every field to its Planoda equivalent.
- 9 Linear concepts map onto Planoda fields (issues, workflow states, cycles, estimates, labels, and more), previewed before anything is written.
- Run both tools in parallel for a short overlap, reconcile the counts, then make Planoda the system of record — no work is left behind.
Step by step
How to move from Linear
Export from Linear
Use Linear's CSV export (Settings → Import / Export, or per-team export) to pull issues, states, labels, estimates, and cycle assignments. For full fidelity on large workspaces, the Linear GraphQL API can stream every issue with relationships.
Map teams, states, and estimates
Linear teams map directly to Planoda teams, and Linear workflow states map one-to-one onto Planoda workflow states. Estimates and priority scales line up closely, so most rows need no transformation.
Bring cycles and projects across
Map Linear cycles to Planoda cycles and Linear projects to Planoda projects so in-flight planning and roadmap context survive the move.
Import into Planoda
Drop your cleaned export into the CSV importer, or push records through the public REST API for large or incremental loads. The importer previews the mapping and flags any rows that need attention before anything is written.
Verify the imported data
Spot-check a sample of issues against the source: titles, assignees, states, priorities, comments, and links. Run a count reconciliation so the totals match before you trust the new workspace.
Run both tools in parallel
Keep the old tool read-only for a short overlap window while your team learns the new workflows. Route all new work into Planoda so nothing is created in two places.
Cut over and archive the source
Once the team is comfortable and open work is in sync, freeze the source tool, export a final backup, and make Planoda the system of record. Update bookmarks, integrations, and team docs.
Field mapping
What maps to what
How Linear concepts map onto Planoda.
| Linear | Planoda |
|---|---|
| Team | Team |
| Issue | Issue |
| Sub-issue | Sub-issue |
| Workflow state | Workflow state |
| Estimate (points) | Estimate |
| Cycle | Cycle |
| Project | Project |
| Label | Label |
| Priority | Priority |
Pro tips
Make the move smoother
Keep your existing team keys during setup so historical links and identifiers remain stable.
Migrate per team to validate the near-1:1 state mapping before importing the whole workspace.
Because the models align, lean on the parallel-run window to train the team on Planoda-specific niceties rather than re-learning the basics.
Common pitfalls
What to avoid
The mistakes that actually trip teams up moving off Linear.
Treating a near-1:1 migration as zero-risk and skipping the import preview: even an aligned model has edge cases — a custom state, a sub-issue depth — that are trivial to fix in preview and annoying to fix after.
Letting team keys drift: Linear's identifiers are how your linked PRs and references read, so keep the same keys rather than letting the importer assign new ones.
Spending the parallel-run window re-learning the basics: the models align, so use that window to adopt the surfaces Linear didn't give you — boards for non-engineers, roadmaps, governed agents — instead of re-confirming the tracker works.
FAQ
Migrating from Linear — FAQ
A note from the founder
“I'm building Planoda in the open and putting my name on it. No borrowed logos, no invented stats — just the work, shipped and auditable. If it doesn't earn your trust, tell me.”
Dmitrii Selikhov is the founder of Planoda and a lead full-stack engineer with 15+ years building developer tools and leading teams as a technical lead, software architect, and CTO.
Still deciding?
Make the switch
Leave Linear behind this weekend.
Bring your Linear export — we'll match every workflow, field by field.