meeting-notes

When to use

Trigger this skill when:

• A meeting has ended and someone needs to distribute notes to attendees and non-attendees.
• A transcript exists (from Otter, Granola, Fireflies, Zoom AI, Google Meet, or a scribe) and you need to distill it.
• A recurring meeting (staff, 1:1, design review) needs notes captured in a consistent format.

Do not use this skill for:

• Legal-grade records where verbatim matters (depositions, disputes) — use the raw transcript.
• Interview notes where the content is the notes (qualitative research) — use a research-specific template.
• Notes from a meeting you did not have a transcript for — ask the user for their rough notes first.

Inputs

Required:

• Transcript (pasted, file path, or link to Otter/Granola).
• Meeting name and date (UTC).

Optional:

• Attendees list (names and roles). If not provided, the skill will extract speakers from the transcript and ask about roles.
• Agenda (if one was circulated).
• Prior meeting notes (for recurring meetings — helps track follow-through on previous action items).

Outputs

A Markdown document following the structure in references/meeting-template.md:

1. Meeting name and Date (UTC)
2. Attendees (with roles)
3. Agenda (if provided)
4. Decisions — explicit yes/no decisions only
5. Action Items — each with owner (named person) and due date
6. Open Questions — things raised but not resolved
7. Discussion Notes — bullet summary, not verbatim
8. Next Meeting — date and agenda items carried forward

Tool dependencies

• Read — to load transcript files.
• Google Calendar MCP (optional) — to resolve attendee list and meeting time from the calendar invite.
• Notion MCP (optional) — to write the notes into a meetings database and link to prior meetings.
• Slack MCP (optional) — to post the notes summary into the team channel.

Procedure

1. Parse the transcript. Identify speaker turns. If the transcript is from Otter/Granola, these are typically tagged; if raw, infer from context or ask.
2. Resolve attendees. If not provided, list every distinct speaker. Match to the calendar invite if available. Tag each with their role.
3. Identify decisions. A decision is an explicit yes/no or pick-A-or-B moment. Look for:
   • “Let’s go with X.”
   • “Decided: we will…”
   • “Agreed, X by Y.”
   • The end of a debate where one option is adopted. A comment like “maybe we should…” is NOT a decision — it is a possible action item or an open question.
4. Extract action items. An action item must name a person and a date.
   • “Alice will send the doc” → action item if a date can be inferred (“by end of week”), otherwise move to Open Questions with a note to confirm owner+date.
   • “Someone should look at this” → NOT an action item. Flag as Open Question.
   • Implicit due dates (“before next meeting,” “this week”) should be resolved to a concrete date based on the meeting date.
5. Identify open questions. Things that were raised, discussed inconclusively, and not converted into a decision or action item. Each should be one sentence, phrased as a question.
6. Summarize discussion. For each agenda item (or each major topic if no agenda), write 2–5 bullets. Each bullet is a point made, not a line spoken. Combine repeated points. Omit:
   • Greetings, goodbyes, small talk.
   • Technical hiccups (“can you hear me?”).
   • Off-topic tangents unless they led to a decision or action item.
7. Check follow-through. If prior meeting notes were provided, list which of the previous action items shipped, slipped, or are still in progress.
8. Identify next meeting. Date, owner, and any agenda items explicitly carried forward.
9. Draft the notes. Enforce the structure. Keep it scannable.
10. Return for human review. Recommend sharing with attendees for corrections before publishing.

Examples

Example 1: Weekly design review, Otter transcript

Input: “Here is the Otter transcript from today’s design review, 2026-04-17. Attendees: Dana (design lead), Marco (PM), Priya (eng), Sam (research).”

Output (excerpt):

# Design Review — 2026-04-17

**Date:** 2026-04-17 (16:00–16:45 UTC)
**Attendees:**
- Dana (Design Lead)
- Marco (PM)
- Priya (Engineering)
- Sam (Research)

## Decisions
- Ship the onboarding redesign with the 3-step flow, not 5-step. Rationale: Sam's usability study showed 5-step drove 18% drop-off at step 3.
- Move the "skip for now" CTA to secondary styling, not primary.

## Action Items
- **Dana:** produce final Figma for the 3-step flow by 2026-04-22.
- **Priya:** estimate implementation cost for the 3-step flow by 2026-04-23.
- **Sam:** share the raw usability study data with Marco by 2026-04-18.
- **Marco:** draft the GTM note for the redesign launch by 2026-04-25.

## Open Questions
- Should first-time users who land via a marketing link skip the onboarding entirely, or see an abbreviated version?
- What is the rollout plan — 100% at launch, or ramp from 10%?

## Discussion Notes
- Sam presented usability findings from n=12 sessions. 5-step flow drove 18% drop at step 3 (address entry).
- Dana proposed collapsing address entry and payment into one step; Priya flagged this adds complexity to validation error states.
- Group agreed that the 3-step flow (account, address+payment, confirm) is the right shape, but validation error UX needs its own review.
- Marco raised GTM timing — launch needs to land before the 2026-05 campaign.

## Next Meeting
- 2026-04-24, 16:00 UTC.
- Carried forward: validation error UX review (Dana to bring).

Example 2: 1:1 transcript with no agenda

Input: “Here’s a rough transcript of my 1:1 with my manager today. We talked about my project and career stuff.”

Output: same structure, but Agenda is marked “none circulated” and Decisions may be empty. Action items lean toward the report (“I will draft a scope doc by Friday”). Discussion Notes are more narrative. Sensitivity flag: the skill should ask whether the notes are for the report’s eyes only before writing anywhere shared.

Constraints

• Action items must name a person and a date. If either is missing, it is an open question, not an action item.
• Decisions must be explicit. Do not promote a suggestion to a decision. If you are unsure, put it in Open Questions.
• No verbatim quoting unless a specific phrase was load-bearing to a decision. Keep the notes one layer of abstraction above the transcript.
• No small talk, technical hiccups, or off-topic tangents in Discussion Notes.
• Times in UTC. Dates in ISO format YYYY-MM-DD.
• Do not name-and-shame. If a person was repeatedly pushing against a decision that was adopted, do not record “X objected but was overruled.” Record the decision and the rationale, not the politics.
• Sensitive content requires confirmation. For 1:1s, performance discussions, and compensation topics, ask before writing anywhere the wrong audience might see.

Quality checks

Before returning, verify:

• Every action item has an owner (named person) and a due date (YYYY-MM-DD).
• Every decision is an explicit yes/no or pick-A-or-B, with a one-phrase rationale.
• Open Questions are phrased as questions.
• Discussion Notes are bullets, not paragraphs; no verbatim quotes unless load-bearing.
• No small talk, greetings, or “can you hear me” noise.
• Attendees have names and roles.
• If prior notes were provided, follow-through is noted.
• Meeting date is in UTC, ISO format.

See references/meeting-template.md for the full template with a worked example.