How the ReplyRabbit Linear integration works
The ReplyRabbit Linear integration connects one FreeScout mailbox to one Linear team with an API key. From then on, a conversation can become a Linear issue that ReplyRabbit writes for engineers, the issue's status shows inside FreeScout, and when engineering marks it done, ReplyRabbit drafts the customer follow-up. On the Pro plan agents create issues manually; the Team plan can create them automatically and route them to projects. This page explains each part of that mechanism.
The connection
Linear is configured per mailbox, in the Integrations section of the mailbox's ReplyRabbit settings. You paste a Linear API key, load the workspace's teams, choose one, and pick a default state (Triage, Backlog, or whatever your team uses for new work). The key is stored encrypted and shown masked afterwards.
ReplyRabbit uses the key to read teams, workflow states, projects, labels and members, and to create and update issues. A mailbox has one active tracker at a time, so choosing Linear means GitHub and Jira settings sit unused for that mailbox.
How an issue gets written
ReplyRabbit doesn't copy the email into Linear. It generates an issue for an engineering reader: a title in the form developers expect, a summary of observed versus expected behaviour, reproduction details taken from the customer's description, a priority, and the FreeScout conversation link. Admins can supply a Markdown ticket template so every issue follows the same layout.
Customer text is treated as content. If a customer's email contains something that looks like an instruction, it's quoted in the summary, not acted on.
How an issue gets routed
| Method | How it works | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| Domain mapping | A customer email domain is mapped to a fixed Linear project | Deterministic routing for known accounts |
| AI project routing | ReplyRabbit matches the conversation to a project when there's a confident fit | Optional; enabled per mailbox |
| No project | If nothing matches confidently, the issue is created without a project | Default fallback, never a guess |
Priority comes from ReplyRabbit's triage and maps to Linear's priority levels.
Manual and automatic creation
Manual (Pro and Team). The agent generates the issue in the ReplyRabbit panel, reviews the title, summary, priority and project, and creates it. This is the default and the right choice for mailboxes with mixed mail.
Automatic (Team). With Auto-submit issues on, ReplyRabbit creates the issue when its triage of a new email concludes that engineering work is needed, applying routing, priority and labels where configured. It suits mailboxes where most reports are genuine bugs.
Status back in FreeScout
Once linked, the conversation shows the Linear identifier, current status, assignee and project. Agents open Linear only when they need the full engineering view. Workflow Tags can add rr_linear_issue_created to the conversation, so FreeScout Workflows recipes can react, and a Slack webhook can post when the issue is created.
The completion loop
When the Linear issue is marked done, ReplyRabbit can prepare the customer follow-up draft in the original FreeScout conversation. The agent reviews it and sends it, so the customer is told the fix shipped without support having to watch the board. Nothing goes to the customer automatically.
Data that leaves FreeScout
Linear receives the generated title and summary, relevant customer context, priority and project fields, and the FreeScout link. If a mailbox handles data that shouldn't reach your Linear workspace, keep Linear disabled there.
The setup walkthrough and troubleshooting table are in Linear integration. For the agent-side steps, see Create Linear issues from FreeScout conversations; for notifications, Slack integration; for the rest of the mailbox, How to set up ReplyRabbit. If issues aren't created, start with Troubleshooting ReplyRabbit.