TL;DR: pick Linear for mature product planning across teams; pick Kelvia for a smaller board where agents have names, permissions, comments, worklogs and a day plan.
Disclosure, because apparently the internet needs these: I built Kelvia. This is not neutral Consumer Reports. I will tell you where my product wins, where it loses and where Linear would be the obvious choice.
What is the short verdict on Kelvia vs Linear MCP?
If your company speaks fluently in initiatives, milestones, cycles and cross-team roadmaps, use Linear. It already does that job well. Replacing it because a solo founder made a neat MCP server would be a strange way to spend a quarter.
If you want a board that people understand in ten minutes, plus agents with their own identity, permissions, comments and time logs, Kelvia is worth a look. It does less. That is partly a weakness and partly the entire point.
How do Kelvia MCP and Linear MCP compare?
| Decision point | Kelvia MCP | Linear MCP |
|---|---|---|
| Best fit | Compact team boards and explicit agent participation | Software teams with deeper product and project structure |
| Core work | Boards, tasks, comments, worklogs, stages, members, tags, day plan | Issues, projects, comments, initiatives, milestones, updates and related product objects |
| Agent identity | Dedicated agent profiles and keys with attribution | Connection acts through the authenticated Linear user or app credentials |
| Read-only model | Read scopes intersected with board role | Dedicated read-only endpoint or read OAuth scope |
| Personal planning | Native recurring blocks and time-blocked day plan | Team cycles and product planning are the stronger axis |
| Time tracking | Native task worklogs exposed through MCP | Not presented as a core MCP workflow in the official guide |
| Server source | Open-source MCP server | Vendor-hosted MCP server |
When should you pick Linear MCP?
When to pick: your team already lives in Linear, or the agent needs projects, initiatives, milestones and relationships. Do not migrate a healthy system for one shiny integration. That is how six-week side quests are born.
Avoid if: you need a simple task board and every new planning layer becomes another field nobody fills in after week two.
Cost: check Linear's current plans before buying. Prices and AI terms move faster than this page can pretend to be timeless.
The official Linear MCP documentation covers roadmap planning, standup updates, bug investigation and implementation plans. It is a serious tool for established product teams. I am not going to stand here with one laptop and claim otherwise.
When should you pick Kelvia MCP?
When to pick: you want kanban, stages, comments, time logs and a day plan without turning task management into a management hobby. It also fits when agents need separate names and visible authorship.
Avoid if: you need portfolio planning, a huge integration catalog or the comfort of buying from a company with many departments. Kelvia has one department. It is me.
Cost: you can try Kelvia free. Check the current limits before inviting the whole company and the company Slack bot.
Kelvia has 58 MCP tools, but you can load only the groups an agent needs. Less schema, fewer weird tool choices, fewer moments where the agent decides a simple task required reorganizing civilization.
How do permissions and attribution differ?
Linear's clearest safety feature is its explicit read-only path: connect to /mcp/readonly or request only the read OAuth scope. For a research or reporting agent, that is easy to reason about.
Kelvia's distinct angle is an agent identity inside the product. Create an agent, add it only to the required boards, choose its role, issue an expiring key and enable selected read/create/edit/delete scopes. The effective access is the intersection of key scopes and board role. Task changes, comments and worklogs show that identity, so a human can filter and review agent activity.
Which MCP is better for planning work?
Linear is better for product structure across teams. Its MCP documentation covers projects, initiatives, milestones, updates and issue relationships. If an agent turns a planning document into a roadmap, that hierarchy is useful.
Kelvia is better for connecting team tasks to the shape of one person's day. Stages provide sprint or milestone boundaries; the day planner mixes board tasks with personal time blocks. Worklogs then record what consumed time. It is less about portfolio planning and more about keeping execution visible.
How should you test Linear and Kelvia before choosing?
Skip the guided tour. Empty demo boards make every product look like it has achieved inner peace. Give both systems one real job: a parent task, three child tasks, an owner, a deadline, comments and a status change.
Then ask four boring questions. Can a person understand what happened without reading the agent chat? Did the agent find the right task? Could you limit its access? Will the final record still make sense next Friday?
Linear will feel better when the test grows into roadmaps, milestones and several teams. Kelvia will feel better when it stays close to execution: one clear board, named agents, comments, worklogs and today's plan. Use the one that makes the work simpler, not the screenshot prettier.
How does setup compare?
Both are hosted remote MCP servers with OAuth. For Claude Code the commands differ only in name and URL:
claude mcp add --transport http linear https://mcp.linear.app/mcp
claude mcp add --transport http kelvia https://mcp.kelvia.app/mcpCodex and Cursor can connect to both as well. Kelvia also provides local stdio mode and bearer agent keys for clients or CI jobs where browser OAuth is the wrong fit. Full commands are in the Kelvia MCP docs.
FAQ
Is Kelvia a full replacement for Linear?
Not for every team. Linear has broader software planning depth. Kelvia is deliberately smaller and stronger around explicit agent identities, time logs and daily planning.
Which MCP server has a read-only endpoint?
Linear documents a dedicated read-only endpoint. Kelvia applies read scopes together with board roles.
Which product attributes agent work separately?
Kelvia supports dedicated agent identities so their task changes, comments and worklogs are distinguishable.
Do both work with Claude Code, Codex and Cursor?
Yes. Both expose hosted remote MCP connections for major clients.
Pick the smaller system that fits
Ready to try the agent-first side?
Connect Kelvia over OAuth, list a board and test one visible write.
Try for free