Appendix

What is a tracker (Linear, Jira, GitHub Issues, GitLab, Azure DevOps)?

A tracker is the place where your team writes down and organizes work: tasks, bugs, features, anything that needs to be done. Each item (often called a "ticket" or "issue") has a title, a description, someone assigned to do it, and a status like "to do," "in progress," or "done." Different teams use different trackers depending on what works best for them.

Linear is popular with smaller and newer teams because it's fast and simple. Jira is common at larger companies because it's powerful and has been around a long time. GitHub Issues is built directly into GitHub, so many teams use it because it's already there. GitLab and Azure DevOps are other platforms with their own issue trackers built in. They all do the same job: keep track of work. The look, feel, and features are different, but the purpose is the same.

Ship needs to know which tracker your team uses so it can read your work items and understand the context of your code. When the wizard asks you to connect a tracker, it's so Ship can see what work you're doing and relate it to the code your team is shipping.

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