Public Linear Board Security: What to Share and What to Keep Private

The most common objection to setting up a public Linear board is security. Teams worry about exposing internal details, leaking strategy, or creating attack vectors. These are valid concerns—and they're easy to address with the right approach.

Your Linear Workspace Stays Private

A public Linear board doesn't open your Linear workspace. It's a separate layer that displays only the issues you choose. Your private projects, internal comments, and team discussions remain invisible. The board shows a filtered, read-only view—nothing more.

What to Keep Off Your Public Linear Board

Some categories of work should never appear on a public board:

• Security vulnerabilities — Never disclose until patched and verified
• API keys, credentials, or infrastructure details — Even in issue descriptions
• Customer-specific data — Names, emails, account details
• Competitive intelligence — Pricing experiments, partnership talks, acquisition targets
• Internal process issues — Team conflicts, hiring plans, performance reviews

Review your issue descriptions before making a project public. Strip anything sensitive from titles and descriptions, or keep those projects private.

How to Control What's Visible

A good public Linear board tool gives you precise control:

• Project-level filtering — Show "Feature Requests" but hide "Infrastructure"
• Label-based filtering — Tag issues as "public" to include them on the board
• Status filtering — Only show issues in certain workflow states
• Description control — Write public-facing descriptions knowing users will read them

The key is curation. You decide what appears on the board. Nothing leaks automatically.

Write Public-Friendly Issue Descriptions

When an issue will appear on your public Linear board, write the description for your users:

• Use clear, jargon-free language
• Explain the feature or fix from the user's perspective
• Omit implementation details that expose architecture
• Skip references to internal tools or systems

Your team can add technical details in Linear comments, which don't appear on the public board.

Start Small, Expand Later

If security concerns are holding you back, start with a narrow set of issues. Make one project public—something low-risk like a feature request board. Once you're comfortable with the visibility, expand to more projects.

A public Linear board with a small, curated set of issues builds more trust than no public board at all.