Sinatra vs Linear coding sessions
The tracker running the agent itself. Sinatra is built on Linear and depends on it, so read this as a comparison of two ways to work, not as a complaint about a partner.
Linear shipped coding sessions in 2026, which makes the tracker Sinatra is built on also a competitor. Linear wins on setup: it is already there, there is nothing to install, and its pricing is about as transparent as this market gets. Sinatra wins if your work also starts from GitHub issues, if you want to run on a key or subscription you already pay for instead of prepaid credits, or if you want a free daily allowance to try it on. Both open a pull request you review and merge yourself.
- Yes means the vendor's own app starts a run from the issue itself, with nothing to commit to the repo first. Sinatra's trigger is the Sinatra label that ships with the GitHub App install (`sinatraai` on the hosted app). Partial means either that a workflow file and an API-key secret have to be added per repository first, or that the mention only works on pull requests and not on issues.
- Yes means assigning the ticket to the agent in Linear starts the run. Partial means the run starts some other way: an attachment link you click, or a trigger you configure yourself against Linear's webhooks. Assignment on its own does nothing.
- Yes means a changes-requested review is enough on its own: Sinatra reworks the branch and pushes the follow-up commit with no re-trigger and no mention. Partial means the agent acts only when it is @-mentioned in the thread, or only while its original session is still open.
- Yes means your own provider API key runs the agent everywhere the product runs it. Partial means keys work on some surfaces but not the one being compared here, either because the vendor documents them as local-CLI-and-desktop only, or because it never documents them covering its cloud agent at all.
- Yes means a Claude Pro/Max or ChatGPT subscription you already pay for authenticates the run on the vendor's hosted cloud. Partial means it works only where that CLI's login already sits on the machine: your own laptop or a self-hosted backend, not a clean cloud sandbox.
- Yes means you are never charged a marked-up model rate, either because you pay your provider directly, or because the vendor publishes the same per-token rates the provider does, or because model use is included in a flat plan with a published allowance. Partial means the answer depends on which plan you are on: no fee on the individual tiers, a published per-token fee on the team ones, charged even against your own key.
- Both halves have to be published: the plan price, and the rate for work past the plan. A published seat price sitting on top of an undisclosed credit, compute unit, or quota size is partial.
- Yes means the free tier states its daily allowance as a number. Sinatra's is 5 tasks a day with your own key or a Codex subscription, 1 a day on Sinatra's keys, no card. Partial means a free plan exists but its allowance is not published.
- Yes means you can run without supplying a model key at all, because the vendor bills you for the model.
- Yes means an editor plugin or a desktop app; partial means a terminal CLI and nothing that runs inside an editor. Sinatra has neither, on purpose: the work starts in the tracker and comes back as a pull request. If you want an assistant inside your editor, that is a real reason to pick one of these instead, and several teams run both.
- Sinatra has no Slack trigger. GitHub and Linear are the only two ways to start a run, and a Slack-first team should weigh that.
- Yes means you can run the agent on infrastructure you control, or the source is open. Partial means execution or inference can be pointed at your own account while the product itself stays the vendor's and stays closed. Sinatra is hosted only; there is no self-managed build.
Read off each vendor's own documentation and pricing pages on September 4, 2026.
How you start it
- Add the Sinatra label to a GitHub issue. The label ships with the GitHub App install and is named after the app (
sinatraaion the hosted one) - Assign a Linear ticket to Sinatra, or @-mention it in a comment
- Delegate a Linear issue to the Linear Agent
- @linear in Slack or Microsoft Teams
- Triage automations
$20 per member per month for hosted sandboxes and orchestration, with model cost passed through at provider rates and no markup. Free tier: 5 tasks a day with your own key or Codex, 1 a day on ours. No card.
Sinatra pricing →Supported on Linear's Basic, Business, and Enterprise plans ($10 and $16 a user a month billed yearly; Enterprise is custom). Sessions draw on a prepaid credit balance in dollars: model tokens at provider-published rates with no markup, plus sandbox runtime at $0.25 per 20-minute block.
Linear coding sessions pricing page →How you start a task
In Linear the two are near-identical by design: delegate an issue, the agent works in a managed sandbox, drafts a pull request, and puts the diff on the issue.
The difference is the second tracker. Linear coding sessions have no GitHub-issue trigger, so GitHub is where the pull request lands rather than where work begins. A team with some backlogs in GitHub Issues has to pick a front door.
After the pull request opens, both need a nudge to act on review feedback, but different amounts of one. Linear's docs describe delegating a code-review action to the Linear Agent "to address any left review comments from other teammates," so a person decides and delegates. Sinatra treats a changes-requested review as the instruction itself.
Setup is the row Linear wins outright. An admin grants code access and enables coding sessions, and every member with repository access can use them. No second vendor, no second login, no new app in your security review.
What it costs, in dollars
Linear's pricing here is unusually clean and worth quoting rather than paraphrasing: a session "includes model tokens at provider-published rates, with no markup, and sandbox runtime at $0.25 per 20-minute block," drawn from a prepaid balance denominated in dollars. There is no free allowance; you top up before the features work.
So neither of us marks up tokens, and the real question is what you would rather pay for. Linear's model is metered and prepaid, with no seat charge for the agent on top of the tracker seat you already have. Sinatra's is a flat seat plus a bill from your own provider, which is better when your developers already hold Claude or ChatGPT subscriptions, because then the model half is already paid.
For a team of five running a few tasks a week, Linear will usually be cheaper. For a team running many tasks a day on subscriptions they already own, Sinatra usually is. Do the arithmetic with your own numbers rather than ours.
Where Sinatra wins
There is a GitHub-issue trigger. Label the issue and the whole loop runs from GitHub, which for repositories whose backlog never made it into Linear is the difference between using an agent and not.
Your key and your subscription work, where Linear's sessions draw on a prepaid
balance instead. The free daily allowance means no top-up before you can see
whether it works on your codebase. Requesting changes gets the follow-up commit
without delegating a review action. And configuration lives in the repository: a
committed .sinatrarc pins the model, the test command, and which phases run,
reviewed like any other change rather than set in an admin panel.
Where Linear wins
Zero setup, and it is already paid for. An admin flips it on. No second vendor, no second bill, no security review, no OAuth app to explain to anyone. For most teams evaluating this, that alone decides it.
It also has the most transparent pricing in this market. You can estimate a session's cost before you run it, which is more than can be said for the credit and compute-unit schemes elsewhere on this site, and there is no per-member charge for the agent since you are already paying for Linear seats.
@linear in a Slack or Teams thread starts a session, which Sinatra cannot do at
all, and triage automations fix incoming issues as they arrive using the rules
your team already runs. Then there is the thing an integration can never match:
status, diffs, review discussion, and the merge all live in the tool your team is
already looking at, with no context to reconstruct somewhere else.
Looking for a Linear coding sessions alternative?
The honest answer is that most teams reading this should just use Linear's. It is already in your workspace, the pricing is legible, and one fewer vendor is worth real money.
Come to Sinatra for one of three specific reasons. Your backlog is partly in GitHub Issues and you want the same agent on both. Your developers already pay for Claude or ChatGPT and you would rather those subscriptions do the work than buy the same tokens again as credits. Or you want to try an agent on a real ticket today without topping up a balance first.
If none of those describe you, staying is the right call, and we would rather say so than sell you a second tool.
Switching, or running both
Delegating to the Linear Agent starts one; assigning to Sinatra starts the other. Two assignees, two agents, two branches, nothing merged by either, and you can run them on separate projects in the same workspace, which makes this the easiest comparison here to set up. Give each a project and a week of real tickets, then compare the pull requests and the two costs. If the credit draw is smaller, use Linear's. You are already paying for the tracker.
Questions people ask about Linear coding sessions and Sinatra
Does Linear charge a markup on model tokens?
No. Its docs say a session 'includes model tokens at provider-published rates, with no markup, and sandbox runtime at $0.25 per 20-minute block,' which is the same promise Sinatra makes.
Can Linear coding sessions start from a GitHub issue?
No. Sessions start by delegating a Linear issue, mentioning @linear in Slack or Teams, or from a triage automation.
Can I use my own Anthropic key or Claude subscription?
Not on Linear's side. Its docs describe sessions running through Claude Code or Codex on a workspace-selected model, billed from your prepaid credit balance.
Is Sinatra competing with Linear?
On this one workflow, yes, and pretending otherwise would be silly. Sinatra is built on Linear and depends on it; if their coding sessions do what your team needs, use them.
Where these facts came from
Every mark on this page was read off Linear coding sessions's own documentation and pricing pages on September 4, 2026, not from a third-party roundup. If something here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will fix the page.