Linear enhances CI efficiency to reduce bottlenecks and costs

Sep 21, 2026

AI Summary

Linear has implemented several optimizations to its Continuous Integration (CI) system, reducing pull request wait times and infrastructure costs. Key improvements include switching to faster runner infrastructure, modernizing the toolchain, and consolidating job setups, resulting in significant performance gains.

Linear's CI system faced bottlenecks as development accelerated, leading to increased wait times and costs. The CTO identified high CI costs and the need for faster processing.
The team optimized CI by reducing pull request wait times from over 6 minutes to just over 5 minutes, while halving runner time per test despite a nearly quadrupled test suite.
Key improvements included moving workloads from GitHub Actions to third-party runners, which resulted in a 34% average speed increase for jobs.
Switching to the native TypeScript compiler, tsgo, reduced type-checking times by 73%, alleviating bottlenecks.
Linting processes were optimized by rewriting rules to use static analysis instead of TypeScript type information, leading to a 68% reduction in API lint time.
The CI system was further streamlined by capping fetch depth for jobs, reducing checkout times significantly.
A custom composite action was developed to handle network instability during checkouts, improving reliability and reducing idle times.
Consolidating jobs and reducing repeated setup tasks saved approximately 87,000 runner-minutes monthly, amounting to 11.8% of total CI usage.
The API test suite was parallelized more effectively, with the number of shards increased from four to eight, resulting in a 19% increase in speed and cost efficiency.
Overall, these optimizations have positioned Linear to handle future growth in its codebase and test suite more efficiently.

cicodingautomationsoftware developmentproductivity

Linear enhances CI efficiency to reduce bottlenecks and costs

Related Stories

AI Tool Assists African Farmers in Adapting to El Niño Conditions

Meta showcases new smart glasses at Meta Connect event

Meta invites users to join early access program for new Muse AI features

Proaction enhances fleet management efficiency and sales with Codex technology