Every 30 minutes

Get warned before an issue breaches its SLA

You hear about issues a few hours before their SLA runs out, once per issue.

Runs: Every 30 minutes
Apps: Linear
AI: Not needed
Access: read

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every 30 minutes, check open Linear issues with an SLA and Slack me any that will breach in the next 4 hours.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

Add to ChatGPT Add to Claude

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

Teams that promise response or resolution times in Linear, such as customer-facing support engineering or enterprise escalations, find out about a missed SLA after the fact. An issue breaches because it sat in someone's queue while they dealt with something else, and the first anyone hears is the customer asking where their fix is. The breach cost goodwill, and sometimes a service credit.

Every 30 minutes, ClickRuntime queries open issues that have SLA fields, compares each breach time with the current time and finds the ones within the warning window you set. It posts those to Slack and remembers which issues it already warned about, so each at-risk issue is announced once rather than repeatedly.

It suits teams with contractual or internal response targets. Teams can set the warning window to match their own commitments.

What you get out of it

Breaches are prevented, not reported
A warning two hours before a deadline lets someone reassign the issue or pick it up. That is far more valuable than a report on Monday saying that the deadline was missed.
Contract commitments are protected
If your agreement includes service credits for missed response times, each avoided breach saves money and avoids awkward conversations with an important customer. Early signs of overload are the cheapest to fix.
Workload problems become visible
When many issues approach their SLA at once, the alerts show that the team is overloaded. That is evidence to hire, reprioritize or push back on new commitments. That pressure shows up in the data before it shows up in burnout.
Alerts do not repeat endlessly
Storing which issues were already warned about keeps the channel readable. People respond to one clear warning rather than learning to ignore a stream of identical messages. Attention goes only where it is needed.
Customers hear from you first
A proactive update to a customer, sent before the deadline, builds more trust than an apology after it. The warning gives the account owner time to write it. That tone makes customers value your service even more.

How it works

What happens, step by step

Every 30 minutes, ClickRuntime checks your open Linear issues that have an SLA deadline.
It picks out the ones that will breach their SLA soon.
It skips issues it has already warned you about, so each one is flagged only once.
A message goes to your Slack channel with the issue, its title and the exact time it will breach.

Before it runs live

Connect Linear

What you get

RunsEvery 30 minutes

Get warned before an issue breaches its SLAtoday, 9:00Succeeded

Slack · #engSLA at risk: ENG-517 Invoices not sending for Acme breaches at 2026-10-19T14:00Z

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.

Your own rules
Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.
Any number of apps
One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.
AI where it helps
Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.
On a schedule or on each event
Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

Run it at a different time, more or less often, or only on weekdays
Add an AI step, for example to summarize, sort or draft a reply
Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
Combine it with other Linear steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.

sla_at_risk_alert.pyexample

from datetime import datetime, timedelta, timezone
from clickruntime import on_trigger, http, credentials, notify, state

def linear(query, variables=None):
    r = http.post(
        "https://api.linear.app/graphql",
        headers={"Authorization": credentials.secret("LINEAR_API_KEY")},
        json={"query": query, "variables": variables or {}},
    )
    r.raise_for_status()
    return r.json()["data"]

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    soon = (datetime.now(timezone.utc) + timedelta(hours=4)).isoformat()
    issues = linear("""query($soon: DateTimeOrDuration!) {
      issues(first: 100, filter: {slaBreachesAt: {lt: $soon}, state: {type: {nin: ["completed", "canceled"]}}}) {
        nodes { id identifier title url slaBreachesAt } } }""", {"soon": soon})["issues"]["nodes"]
    alerted = set(state.get("alerted") or [])
    new = [i for i in issues if i["id"] not in alerted]
    for i in new:
        notify.slack(f"SLA at risk: <{i['url']}|{i['identifier']}> {i['title']} breaches at {i['slaBreachesAt'][:16]}Z", channel="#eng")
        alerted.add(i["id"])
    state.set("alerted", list(alerted)[-500:])
    return {"at_risk": len(new)}

FAQ

Common questions

How far ahead of the breach does it warn?

You choose the window. Four hours before breach is a common choice for response times measured in a day, and 30 minutes for tight targets. Because the check runs every 30 minutes, the warning arrives within that margin of the window you set. The warning message names the issue, its assignee and the time left, so the person reading it knows what to do without opening Linear first.

Does it understand business hours?

It compares the breach time stored on each Linear issue with the current time. If Linear calculates that breach time using business hours, the warning follows it. The automation does not calculate calendars on its own, it relies on the dates Linear provides.

What happens when an issue is resolved after a warning?

Nothing further. Once the issue is closed it no longer appears among open issues, so no later warning is made. The stored record of warned issues is only used to avoid sending the same alert twice.

What permissions does it need?

read. Nothing else in your accounts is used.

Does it need AI?

No. It runs without AI, so it doesn't use your plan's AI allowance.

How many runs does it use?

One run each time it runs (every 30 minutes). Checks that find nothing to do and stop right away aren't counted.

Can I change how it works?

Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

On a schedule