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Rebuilding Linear’s delta sync read path

linear.app · 1,425 words · saved by 1 readers

How we use Turbopuffer to keep catch-up latency predictable across more than 20 TB of sync actions.

Linear is a local-first application. Each client maintains a local database so that creating an issue, changing its status, or navigating a workspace doesn’t require a network round trip. That makes the app feel immediate, but the tradeoff is that a client returning online needs a way to catch up, fast. Rather than download the entire workspace again, the client sends a checkpoint containing the ID of the last change it applied. Delta sync uses that checkpoint to retrieve only what has changed in the meantime. Some of our largest workspaces produce close to one million sync actions per…

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