Incident Report Template for Linear (2026)
Linear provides a lightweight incident tracking approach using issues, labels, and projects. For teams that do not need the full weight of Jira Service Management, Linear offers enough structure for incident documentation and postmortem tracking.
Use Linear labels for severity classification and a dedicated Incidents project for organization.
Template sections
4 sections covering the complete incident report workflow.
Incident Issue
Create a Linear issue with the label "Incident" and a severity sub-label (SEV-1 through SEV-4). Use the issue description for the incident report: summary, timeline, impact, and root cause. The issue tracks the incident from detection through postmortem completion.
Timeline in Description
Document the incident timeline in the issue description using markdown. Use timestamps for each event. Update the description in real time during the incident. Linear version history preserves the progression of updates for post-incident review.
Remediation Sub-Issues
Create sub-issues for each remediation action item. Label them "Incident Follow-Up." Add sub-issues to the next cycle so they are visible during sprint planning. The parent incident issue shows progress as sub-issues are completed.
Postmortem Project
Create a Linear Project for incident postmortems. Add each incident issue to this project. The project view provides a history of all incidents with their severity, status, and linked remediation items.
Copy-paste template
## Incident: [Short description] ### Severity: [SEV-1/2/3/4] ### Summary [2-3 sentence incident summary] ### Timeline - **HH:MM UTC** — [Detection: How discovered] - **HH:MM UTC** — [Investigation: What was found] - **HH:MM UTC** — [Mitigation: What action was taken] - **HH:MM UTC** — [Resolution: How it was fixed] ### Impact - Duration: [X hours Y minutes] - Users affected: [Count or percentage] - Revenue impact: [$Amount or N/A] ### Root Cause [Technical root cause description] ### 5 Whys 1. [Direct cause] 2. [Why] 3. [Systemic cause] ### Linear Fields - Label: Incident, SEV-[N] - Project: Incident Postmortems - Sub-issues: [Remediation items]
Frequently asked questions
Generate instead of filling in templates
Connect your tools, and Vantage generates the content using real product data. Free to start.
Free to start. No credit card required.