How to set up a workflow in Linear on Mac: statuses, team settings and order

A workflow in Linear is the ordered list of statuses an issue moves through. Think of it as the lanes your work travels in, from the first idea to the finished job. Each team has its own workflow, so a design team and a support team can run different lanes in one workspace. This guide covers the Mac steps, the settings that matter, and the mistakes that cause trouble later.

What a workflow means in Linear

Linear's concept docs describe a workflow as a group of ordered issue statuses, defined per team. The word ordered matters. The order decides which status comes first, which comes next, and how columns line up when you open a board. If a status sits in the wrong place, people move issues in ways that make the board lie.

Linear also gives you a head start. It creates a default workflow for each team, and the docs say you can customize it in Team Settings. You rarely begin with a blank page. Open the default, keep what fits, rename what does not, and add a status only when you need one.

Check your plan and access first

Your plan sets how many teams you can have, and it decides which team-level features you get. Linear's pricing page lists the limits below. Check them before you design a big workflow, so you do not plan lanes for a team you cannot create.

• Free: $0, with 2 teams and 250 issues.
• Basic: $10 per user per month, billed yearly, with 5 teams and unlimited issues.
• Business: $16 per user per month, billed yearly, with unlimited teams, private teams and guests.
• Enterprise: custom pricing, billed annually only.

Access matters too. Linear's Teams doc says admins can restrict team creation to admin users under Settings, then Administration, then Security. If you can see Team settings but cannot change statuses, ask a workspace admin. I could not confirm a separate rule for who edits statuses, so ask rather than guess.

Step-by-step: open a team's workflow on Mac

The steps below follow the labels in the Linear desktop app. Labels can shift between releases, so read each one before you click. The path runs from the sidebar to Team settings, then to Automations, where the status list lives.

Add, rename and reorder statuses

Once you are in Automations, you do three jobs: rename, add and reorder. Rename first. A status called In progress means little to a support team that says Working on it. Use the words your team already uses in chat, so nobody has to translate them.

Add a status only when an issue really sits in that state for a while. Each extra status is one more thing people must update. Short lists are easier to keep honest. Reorder last. Once the names are set, the order is the flow, so check each move by asking whether an issue could skip backward.

Set up project statuses too

Issue statuses track one piece of work. Projects have their own status list, separate from the issue flow. The two lists look similar in the app, so keep them apart in your head before you edit either one.

Workspace admins edit project status names, descriptions and colors in Settings, then Projects, then Statuses. That list covers the whole workspace and works on every plan. Team project statuses sit under Team settings, then Team project statuses, and need Business or Enterprise. A September 24, 2026 changelog entry says teams can define their own project labels and statuses, and extend them to sub-teams.

Keyboard shortcuts for setup work

Linear has many shortcuts, but this page lists only the ones its own docs or changelogs confirm. Test any other shortcut in the app before you depend on it.

• ⌘K opens the command bar. Type a view or action name and pick it from the list.
• Esc clears the selected issues in a list or board view.
• Shift with ↑ or ↓ extends a selection one issue at a time, after you select the first issue.
• Comments send on Enter or on ⌘Enter. Choose the one you want in preferences.

Worked example: a five-status product workflow

Say you run a small product team. Work moves from an idea to a spec, then to build, review and release. The default statuses rarely match that, so you rename and add until they do. Start in Automations and rename the first status to Spec in progress.

Next, add Ready to build between the spec step and Building. Then drag Building and In review so they sit in that order. Shipped stays last. Keep the list at five. Two more statuses would add lanes that nobody uses.

Test the result with two test issues. Create them in the team, move one through each status, and watch where the card lands. If a card lands in the wrong column, the order is wrong. Delete the test issues when you finish, so the board starts clean.

Common mistakes when setting up a Linear workflow

• Renaming statuses before the team agrees on the flow, so you rename everything twice.
• Adding too many statuses. People then pick the nearest one, and the board stops telling the truth.
• Reordering a status that already holds issues, then missing that some issues now sit in a lane that feels backward.
• Looking for team project statuses on a Free or Basic plan, where they are not available.
• Changing one team's statuses and expecting every team to follow. Each team has its own workflow.
• Letting Enter send half-written comments. Switch the setting in preferences.

Most of these come from rushing the first pass. Agree on names and order with the people who move issues every day, then edit once. A short meeting saves three rounds of cleanup.

Check the workflow with time in status

Linear announced time in status on January 29, 2026. Hover over an issue's status indicator and you see the cumulative time it has spent in each status. You can also order by time in status, or filter with conditions such as In Review for more than 7 days.

That turns the workflow into a check. If issues sit in Building for weeks, the status may be too broad, or the work may be stuck. Read those numbers each week and adjust names or order when a lane tells you something is off.

Troubleshooting when changes do not stick

Most setup problems come from access, plan limits or an old app. Linear's March 12, 2026 UI refresh fixed a bug where workflow status saves could stay pending in Settings. If a save looks stuck, quit the desktop app, reopen it and check the status again.

Next steps after the workflow works

With the workflow set, the next job is getting work into it. Read how to create an issue in Linear on Mac for shortcuts and templates, then build a view with how to filter issues in Linear on Mac.

If your team plans in sprints, turn on cycles next. How to create a cycle in Linear on Mac walks through the team setting. Linear's desktop page lists a macOS download but no version number, so your labels may differ slightly from this page.