Sync tools copy names. A bridge pairs records.

Linear, Jira and Harvest already hold the work. The bridge does not pour them into us, and it does not pour us into them. It points one id at another, and it leaves the rest unmatched until you say otherwise.

I have watched a sync “help” by creating Acme Inc beside Acme Pty Ltd and then creating it again next Tuesday. Names are not identity. If the board already lives in Linear, or the hours already live in Harvest, I do not want a second copy that drifts. I want a pair: their id, our id, and an honest default of doing nothing.

The bridge assumes both sides already have their own data. It does not pick one TurtleTime project and pour Linear into it. The link is a property on the pair. “Acme Inc” on Harvest can point at “Acme Pty Ltd” here. Each side keeps its own name.

The same three choices, every row

• Leave unmatched. The row stays where it is. Nothing is copied. This is the default, on purpose.
• Add here if it does not exist, when we can create that local record.
• An existing record. Point this remote id at that local id, even when the names differ.
• Backfill, once a bridge is connected, is the same control everywhere: latest, this week, from a date, or all history.

What actually pairs

On the timer: Harvest, Toggl Track and Clockify clients, projects and time. A Harvest task becomes a category, not a board card. On the board: pair the container first — a Linear team, a Jira project, a GitHub repository, an Asana project — and then the issues follow that pair. On the wiki: a Notion page, a Confluence page or a Google Doc becomes a document. Database rows are the board’s bridge, not the wiki’s. Pull requests, cycles and a mailbox are not tasks.

What we refuse to call a bridge

HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack, Figma, Miro. Their objects are not a client, a project, a task, an hour, an invoice or a document we already store. Connecting them is an integration. Pretending they sync is how the directory fills with junk.

If you cannot leave a row unmatched, it is not a bridge. It is an import you cannot undo.

Bridge when both sides already store that kind of record. If they do not, leave it. A sync that invents objects is how you get two companies named Acme.