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Connect Linear and anyone on your team can turn a conversation into a Linear issue without leaving miniDesk. You can also have every new conversation open one on its own. Each issue then follows its conversation: resolve the conversation in miniDesk and the issue moves to Done.

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Connect

  1. In miniDesk, go to Channels and choose Connect on the Linear card. You need to be an owner of the workspace.
  2. Choose Continue to Linear and allow miniDesk in your Linear workspace.
  3. Back on Channels, open Linear and pick the Team new issues go to. Until you do, Linear shows Pick a team.
miniDesk asks Linear for read and write access to your workspace. Linear has no narrower option, and miniDesk needs write access to move issues, add labels and keep the conversation card up to date.

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Open an issue for every new conversation

On Channels, open Linear and switch on Open an issue for every new conversation. From then on, each new conversation a customer starts gets an issue in your team:
  • The title is a short summary the AI writes from the first message, which uses some of your AI quota. When AI is off or your quota is used up, it is the first line of the message.
  • The description is who wrote, on which channel, and their first message as they wrote it.
Spam never gets an issue. A conversation you take out of Spam gets its issue then. Conversations your team starts, and automatic emails, do not. Turning the switch on does not open issues for older conversations. If Linear does not answer, miniDesk keeps trying for about a day.

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Open an issue from a conversation

In a conversation, under Linear issues in the panel beside it:
  1. Choose New issue.
  2. Choose Draft with AI to have the title and description written from the conversation, internal notes included, or write them yourself. A draft uses some of your AI quota. Linear reads the description as Markdown.
  3. Choose Create issue.
Each issue appears under Linear issues with its identifier, like ENG-12, linking to Linear. When Jira is connected too, it has its own Jira issues section.

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How an issue follows its conversation

Changes go one way, from miniDesk to Linear. Nothing you do in Linear changes the conversation.
  • The issue only moves when the conversation does: a reply that switches it between Open and Pending leaves the issue where it is, and an issue someone put in another state of the same kind, like In Review, stays there.
  • A customer writing again after the conversation was resolved moves the issue back to In Progress.
  • miniDesk creates a label in your team when none has the tag’s name, and only ever removes labels it added.
  • Each issue carries a conversation card with the customer’s name and the conversation’s status, linking back to miniDesk.
  • When two conversations are merged and both have an issue, the merged one’s issue is marked as a duplicate of the other’s.

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What goes into Linear

Issues opened automatically or drafted with AI include what the customer wrote. Issues you write by hand hold only what you write. The rest of the conversation stays in miniDesk.

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Pause or disconnect

On Channels, open Linear. Switch Open issues from conversations off to hide the button and pause the sync while keeping the connection, or choose Disconnect to remove miniDesk’s access. Issues already created stay in Linear.