Linear Roadmap
The Roadmap view in Linear shows all your projects laid out on a timeline. It answers the question every stakeholder asks: "What are we building and when will it be ready?" Teams use the roadmap to communicate plans, spot scheduling conflicts, and keep priorities visible at the company level.
What a Roadmap Shows
A roadmap displays projects as horizontal bars on a calendar. The left edge of a bar marks the start date. The right edge marks the target date. The bar's length shows the expected duration. Multiple projects stack on the same timeline so you see everything happening across your teams at once.
ROADMAP VIEW (Q3 2024)
Jul Aug Sep
─────────────────────────────────
Mobile App v2 [━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━]
API v3 Upgrade [━━━━━━━━━━━━━━]
Website Redesign [━━━━━━━━━━━━]
Analytics Dashboard [━━━━━━━━━━━━━]
Security Audit [━━━━]
Access the Roadmap
Click Roadmap in the left sidebar. This view shows all projects across the entire workspace by default. You can filter it to show only specific teams, specific statuses, or a specific date range.
Roadmap vs Cycle View
These two views solve different problems. Understanding the difference helps teams use each one for the right purpose.
| Aspect | Roadmap | Cycle View |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | Projects and goals | Individual issues and tasks |
| Time Horizon | Months to quarters | Days to weeks |
| Audience | Stakeholders, executives, all teams | Developers and project leads |
| Unit of Work | Projects | Issues |
| Purpose | Strategic planning and communication | Sprint execution and delivery |
Set Project Dates for the Roadmap
A project only appears on the roadmap after you set its start date and target date. Open any project and update the Start Date and Target Date fields in the project settings panel.
Setting Project Dates
- Click on the project name in Projects view
- Open the project settings panel on the right side
- Click the Start Date field and pick a date
- Click the Target Date field and pick a date
- The project bar appears on the Roadmap automatically
Roadmap Filtering Options
Large organizations have dozens of projects on the roadmap at once. Use filters to focus the view on what matters most right now.
| Filter Option | What It Shows | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Team | Projects from one specific team | Team lead reviewing only their projects |
| Status | Only In Progress, Planned, or other statuses | Removing completed projects from view |
| Lead | Projects owned by a specific person | Executive checking one PM's portfolio |
| Date Range | Projects active in a specific time window | Quarterly planning sessions |
Spotting Scheduling Conflicts
The roadmap immediately reveals conflicts that are invisible in a flat list. Common conflict patterns to look for:
Overloaded Team (Too Much Happening at Once)
Engineering Team – August ────────────────────────────────────── API Upgrade [━━━━━━━━━━━━━━] Database Migration [━━━━━━━━━━━━━━] Security Audit [━━━━━━━━] Performance Refactor [━━━━━━━━━━━━━━] ⚠ Four major projects overlap. The team cannot realistically deliver all of these in the same month.
Back-to-Back Projects with No Buffer
Product Team ──────────────────────────────────────── Website Redesign [━━━━━━━━━━━━] Mobile App v2 [━━━━━━━━━━━━] ⚠ The next project starts the day the previous one ends. Any delay in Redesign delays Mobile App v2 launch.
Project Health on the Roadmap
Each project bar on the roadmap shows a color-coded health indicator. This gives a quick status check across all projects without clicking into each one.
| Color | Health Status | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Green | On Track | Progressing as planned |
| Yellow | At Risk | Some issues could cause delay |
| Red | Off Track | Behind schedule — action needed |
| Grey | No Status Set | Health not yet reported |
Sharing the Roadmap
Linear allows you to share a read-only version of the roadmap with external stakeholders who do not have a Linear account. Go to Roadmap > Share and generate a shareable link. This link shows a live, view-only version of the roadmap — always up to date whenever the recipient opens it.