---
title: Moving from Linear to GitHub & LIVE Roadmap 2.0
description: We are leaving linear and are going all in on GitHub. Here is how we do it.
authorName: 'Timur Ercan'
authorImage: '/blog/blog-author-timur.jpeg'
authorRole: 'Co-Founder'
date: 2024-01-10
tags:
  - GitHub
  - Backlog
  - Roadmap
---

# From Linear to GitHub

> TLDR; We are leaving Linear and using only GitHub now. We don't communicate feature timelines anymore, only what we are working on and what's next.

If you follow us, you know that we have been in full on build-mode. We are building, the community is building, it's great. As building is our daily business now, we think a lot about how to do it better.
Our most recent approach is to reduce the number of tools and plattform we use. Every tool you use

- Reduces the average time you spend on the tool
- Reduces your focus
- Increases mental load to keep all points of interest in mind

So, we thought about what's the plattform/ tool is, that we spend the most time on. Hardly suprising, it's Github. No only do we spend a lot of time there, we also WANT to spend a lot of time there because:

- It's where the community contributes and we are all about community (as you may know)
- It where we show the world what we are working on

# The old structure

So far, we have been using Linear for our Backlog/ Task Management and synced issue we want to showcase or work on with the community via synclinear.com. Not onyl did we have our development issue there, but since
we have our own resident founding designer we created a proper design backlog, to structure our design worklows.

# The new structure

Once we realized our focus was way more on GitHub anyway, we simply decided to move everything there. This has a few key benefits:

- Reducing dilution of attention and time: You can just hang out on GitHub without risk of missing much
- Putting different aspects of Documenso close to each other: Development, Design, Community
- Keep longterm, niche and very abstract issues out of the main repo, so we don't get desensitized by large issue numbers

To achieve this, we created a few GitHub repositories to host issues, with the old main repository remaining the central point of interest, especially for the community.

## 1. Main Repository - Day to day Issues and the shorter-term roadmap (LIVE Roadmap 2.0)

> [github.com/documenso/documenso](https://github.com/documenso/documenso)

Apart from the source code of the Documenso app and plattform the main repo houses issues raised by the community as well as issues where we invite the community to participate.
While overhauling our issue management, we are also updating our progress communication. While the process of software and product development is extremely complex,
we try to give as much insight into what we do as possible. To that end we went throught 3 phases, with 3 being what we do now.

1. **One big roadmap**: Initially we had one roadmap and where (very) slowly checking of boxsed there (via a "Roadmap" milestone) while this is easy, it's also pretty imprecise and not practical as the project grows
2. **Estimated releases per quarter**: To give better guidance we tried communicating our goals for the quarter, a quite big window, we thought we could roughly "hit". While the idea to not be too detailed was good, it is extremely hard to estimate when some major thigns are done, if you do a lot of minor/ other things in parallel e.g. working with the community and tuning things you go. The reason why hitting time targets is so hard, is that it may not be the smartest thing to stick to that time target if other things come up. This is much easier to grasp for the people closely involved. The fallacy is to assume the thing you plan for exists in vaccuum.
3. Since we do not want to limit ourselves in choosing the most effective course but still give some insight into what's going on and what's coming up we updated the LIVE Roadmap [https://documen.so/live](https://documen.so/live) to show what we are **currently working on and what's up next**, once we finish. We do not provide specific timeline, since we couldn't if we wanted to. Of course try to set our short-term goals based on what's best for the community. We try to give updates on the issues that are being worked on as good as possible.

## 2. Public Backlog - The longer-term roadmap

> [github.com/documenso/backlog](https://github.com/documenso/backlog)

The public backlog houses everything we want to eventually build. We do not provide guidance on when that may be. The only thing we like to say is, that if we decide against something it will be removed from the public backlog, as we consider this our longterm vision for Documenso. If you are interested in something on the roadmap let us know by commenting on the issue or posting on Discord.
Issues in the public backlog are availible to be worked on. For issues to work on please check the main repository issues. The issues found here are scoped broader, since they are not meant for immediate execution but rather give a sense on where Documenso is going and what we consider part of our Domain.

## 3. Internal Backlog

> github.com/documenso/backlog-internal

This is the actual replacement of our Linear backlog. He we host issues, too small or shortterm for the longterm roadmap and too niche or core to go into the main repo. We used a GitHub project as our development kanban board.

## 4. Internal Design Backlog

> github.com/documenso/design-internal

This is the design equivalient of the internal backlog. The internal design backlog houses our design projects that include exploration of new features, detailed UI designs and improving the plattform overall.

## 5. Public Design Repository

> [github.com/documenso/backlog-design](https://github.com/documenso/design)

While the internal design backlog also existed in Linear, the public design repository is new. Since designing is the open is tricky, we opted to instead publish the detailed design artefacts together with the corresponding feature.
We already have design.documenso.com housing our general design system. Here, we will publish the specifics of how we applied this to each feature. We will publish the first artifacts here soon, what may be in the cards can be found on the [LIVE Roadmap](https://documen.so/live).

If you have any questions or comments, please reach out on [Twitter / X](https://twitter.com/eltimuro) (DM open) or [Discord](https://documen.so/discord).

Best from Hamburg
Timur
