On a schedule

See which open issues nobody has touched

Every Monday you get the open issues with no updates in 14 days, grouped by team and priority.

Runs: On a schedule
Apps: Linear
AI: Not needed
Access: read

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every Monday at 9am, Slack me Linear issues that aren't done or cancelled and haven't been updated in 14 days, grouped by team and priority.

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

Open issues age quietly. A medium-priority bug filed in March is still open in June, nobody has commented since, and the engineer who owned it has changed teams. Each team's board looks busy, but a good share of it is dead weight, and the real risks, such as a high-priority issue that was forgotten, are buried among tickets that no longer matter.

Every Monday, ClickRuntime queries Linear for issues that have not been updated for 14 days or more and are not completed or canceled, groups them by team and priority, and posts the list to Slack. Each team sees its own forgotten work at the start of the week, when there is time to deal with it.

Team leads who want a steady habit of backlog hygiene, without a quarterly cleanup project, use it most.

What you get out of it

Forgotten high-priority issues resurface
A high-priority bug that nobody has touched in two weeks is the kind of thing that causes an incident later. Grouping by priority puts those at the top, where the team lead cannot miss them.
Every team sees its own backlog debt
Grouping by team gives each lead a clear list of what belongs to them. Nobody can say the stale tickets belong to someone else, and ownership becomes obvious. Accountability works best when it is specific.
Cleanup happens in small steps
Fifteen minutes on Monday handling the list prevents a pile of hundreds of stale tickets from forming. The work is spread out over weeks instead of becoming a painful project.
Reporters get answers
Closing or commenting on a stale issue lets the person who filed it know what is happening. Customers and colleagues notice when their reports are acknowledged, even if the answer is no.
The backlog shrinks to what matters
Deciding to close or revive each issue leaves a list that reflects real plans. Planning becomes easier when everyone trusts that what is open is worth doing. That is how a roadmap stays believable over time.

How it works

What happens, step by step

Once a week, ClickRuntime looks for open Linear issues that nobody has updated in 14 days or more.
Finished and cancelled issues are left out.
It groups the stale issues by team and priority.
A single message goes to your Slack channel listing each issue, so the team can pick them up or close them.

Before it runs live

Connect Linear

What you get

RunsOn a schedule

See which open issues nobody has touchedtoday, 9:00Succeeded

Slack · #eng12 issues untouched for 14+ days: Platform · High · ENG-301 Retry webhook deliveries on 5xx

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.

weekly_stale_issue_digest.pyexample

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

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):
    cutoff = (datetime.now(timezone.utc) - timedelta(days=14)).isoformat()
    issues = linear("""query($cutoff: DateTimeOrDuration!) {
      issues(first: 250, filter: {updatedAt: {lt: $cutoff}, state: {type: {nin: ["completed", "canceled"]}}}) {
        nodes { identifier title url priorityLabel team { name } } } }""", {"cutoff": cutoff})["issues"]["nodes"]
    if not issues:
        return {"stale": 0}
    issues.sort(key=lambda i: (i["team"]["name"], i["priorityLabel"]))
    lines = [f"{i['team']['name']} · {i['priorityLabel']} · <{i['url']}|{i['identifier']}> {i['title']}" for i in issues]
    notify.slack(f"{len(issues)} issues untouched for 14+ days:\n" + "\n".join(lines), channel="#eng")
    return {"stale": len(issues)}

FAQ

Common questions

What counts as untouched for 14 days?

The issue's last updated date in Linear is more than 14 days old. A new comment, a status change or an edit resets it. Issues that are completed or canceled are left out, since they are finished and need no follow-up.

Is this the same as the automation that moves stale issues?

No. This one only reports and takes no action, while the other moves stale issues to a different status. Many teams use the digest first, to learn how many issues qualify, and add automatic moves later once they trust the rule.

Can I post each team's list in its own channel?

Yes. Each issue carries its team, so the digest can send a separate message to a channel per team. That tends to work better for larger organizations, where one long list in a shared channel would be ignored.

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 (on a schedule). 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.

Daily