Import from GitHub, Linear and Trello

Bring the work you already have into a project: GitHub issues, Linear issues or a Trello board. Imports are on every plan. Imported cards count as open cards like any other, so on Free an import brings in what fits and tells you what didn’t (plans). Anyone who can edit the board can import into it; an archived project can’t take one.

Start an import

• A new project: in New project, turn on Import from GitHub, Linear or Trello. The project opens on its import settings once it’s made.
• An existing project: Project settings → Import.

Pick the source, preview, check where each column goes, then import.

GitHub

Pick a repository your workspace has connected to GitHub (Workspace settings → Integrations, on Pro and up), or name any repository (owner/name) and paste a fine-grained token with read access to its issues. Members see the connected repositories linked to the project they import into; workspace admins see every connected repository. Open issues come in by default; turn on Include closed issues to bring closed ones into a done lane. Milestones can become epics. Pull requests are left out.

Linear

Paste a personal API key (in Linear: Settings → Security & access), find your teams, and pick a team and optionally one of its projects. Each workflow state is a column. Done and cancelled issues come in only when you ask for them. Linear projects or cycles can become epics. A sub-issue becomes a card of its own whose brief says which issue it’s part of.

Trello

In Trello, open the board’s menu, choose Print, export and share, then Export as JSON, and pick that file. The file is read in your browser; only the cards are sent. Each list is a column; archived lists and cards stay behind. Checklists come across ticked as they were, attachments as links, and a label without a name is named after its color. Keep the tab open until the import finishes.

What a card gets

• The title (up to 200 characters), and the description as the brief (Markdown as written, up to 20,000 characters; a longer one is cut and says so).
• Labels, up to 8 per card and 40 per project.
• A checklist from the issue’s task list (- [ ] like this) or the Trello card’s checklists, up to 50 items.
• An epic from its GitHub milestone or Linear project or cycle, when you ask for that, up to 50 per project.
• A footer in the brief with a link back to the original and what a card has no field for: who it was assigned to, the parent issue, the due date, attachments.
• A first line in its activity saying where it came from, like “Imported from GitHub issue #12”.

Imported cards never start an agent on their own, even in a lane with an auto-start rule.

Mapping columns to lanes

The preview lists each column of the source (a status, a list) with how many of its items are new, and picks a swimlane and lane for it: a lane of the same name, or the lane its name suggests (Done to your done lane, In progress to Working, Backlog to the backlog). Change any of them, or choose Don’t import. Cancelled and “not planned” columns are left out unless you pick a lane.

Before you import, the preview says what fits your plan, like “22 cards fit your plan; 10 won’t”. Cards going to a done lane always fit.

Running it again

Each imported card remembers the item it came from, so running an import again adds only what’s new (“12 new cards, 40 already imported”) and leaves the cards you already have as they are. That also finishes an import that stopped partway or ran out of room: make room, run it again, and it adds the rest. A card you archived or moved to the trash still counts as imported; one deleted for good comes back on the next run.

Limits

• One import runs in a project at a time, and one run reads up to 5,000 items. A Trello file can be up to 50 MB.
• An import that stopped (a closed tab, for Trello) shows as interrupted after 15 minutes. Run it again to pick up where it stopped.
• When GitHub or Linear asks to slow down, a wait of up to a minute is waited out. A longer one stops the run and says when it can run again.
• Labels past a project’s 40 and epics past its 50 are left off, and the import lists them.
• Each import is in the workspace’s audit log, with its counts.

Your keys

The Linear key or GitHub token you paste is used for that preview or import only. Yokka never stores it.