GitHub, Linear and Jira

Customers often write in about a bug your engineers already know about. Connect your issue tracker and a draft can say whether a problem is known and whether it is still open, and with GitHub, which release fixed it. Overdesk reads only the repositories, teams or projects an admin approves.

What each one reads

	GitHub	Linear	Jira
Reads	Open and closed issues, and published releases	Issues	Issues
From	The repositories you list, as owner/name	The teams you list, by team key	The projects you list, by project key
Credential	A fine-grained token with read access to Metadata, Contents and Issues	A personal API key; scope it to those teams, with Read access	An Atlassian API token, with the email of the account that created it

A team or project key is the prefix on your issue numbers, like ENG in ENG-123. Each connection holds up to 20 repositories, teams or projects.

Every issue carries its status, so a draft can tell open from closed. GitHub pull requests are left out. Jira keeps your team's own resolution word for word, so an issue closed as a duplicate never reads as fixed, and Linear says plainly when something was cancelled rather than fixed. Jira Server and Data Center are not supported.

Connect

1. Open Integrations and choose GitHub, Linear or Jira.
2. Create the credential the form asks for, following its instructions, and paste it in.
3. List the repositories, teams or projects to read, one per line.
4. Select Connect.

Each form checks the credential with a real read before saving it. GitHub refuses a classic token, because it can push code to every repository you can reach. The Jira form also has a checkbox for opening issues from conversations, and it stays off unless you tick it.

Only what an admin approves

The list on the connect form is the boundary. Overdesk reads the repositories, teams or projects on it and nothing else the credential can reach, and every sync checks the list again.

To change the list without reconnecting, open the integration's page and edit Which repositories should Overdesk read?, Which teams should Overdesk read? or Which projects should Overdesk read?. Removing an entry removes its issues from the knowledge base and stops your team filing new issues into it. Nothing in GitHub, Linear or Jira is touched.

GitHub and your code

Your code is never added to the knowledge base. Overdesk indexes each approved repository's file list and README, and while it writes a draft it can open files from that repository when the answer depends on what the code does. A draft that did so lists them under Read from your code on its What this answer is based on card, so the reviewer can check them. Overdesk is instructed not to quote code in a reply.

Opening issues from a conversation

The one thing Overdesk writes to these tools is a new issue opened from a conversation, and a person confirms each one. See Creating issues from a conversation.

Syncing and your plan

Issues sync every night. An admin can start a sync at any time with Sync now on the integration's page, where the Syncing card also shows when each sync last ran and any error it hit. Disconnecting removes everything the integration put in the knowledge base.

Each repository, team and project counts as its own knowledge source. See Plans and pricing.