| name | meeting-notes-structure |
| description | Produces meeting notes that capture decisions and action items — not transcription. Attendees, agenda, decisions, action items with owners and deadlines. Use when a user needs notes from a meeting that's about to happen, is happening, or just ended, or wants a template for recurring meetings. |
Meeting Notes Structure
A tight, consistent template for notes anyone can read six months later and know what happened.
When to use
- A user is taking notes during or after a meeting.
- They need a template for a recurring meeting (standup, 1-on-1, retro, planning).
- They have a raw transcript / recording and want to extract notes from it.
- They're prepping an agenda for a meeting that hasn't happened yet.
Before you start
Know:
- Meeting type. Standup, 1-on-1, retro, planning, kickoff, status, decision. Changes structure. See meeting-types.md.
- Audience for the notes. Attendees only? Wider team? Public customer update? Drives what you include and what you leave out.
- Sensitivity. Performance, comp, layoffs, legal — different rules (fewer specifics, named owner for follow-up, flagged confidential).
Authoring workflow
- Before the meeting: write the agenda into the notes template. Attendees, expected outcomes, questions to decide.
- During the meeting: capture decisions and action items in real time. Full sentences where it matters; fragments are fine for context.
- After the meeting (within 15 min): clean up, move action items to the top, confirm owners/deadlines, send to attendees.
- Don't transcribe. Notes are not a recording. Capture decisions and actions, skip the discussion that led there unless it's load-bearing.
The core template
# [Meeting name] — [YYYY-MM-DD]
**Attendees**: [Names, flag missing people]
**Absent**: [Names, if expected but absent]
**Purpose**: [One sentence]
## Action items
| Owner | Task | Due |
|-------|------|-----|
| @alice | Draft the RFC | 2026-05-01 |
| @bob | Get legal review | 2026-04-29 |
## Decisions
- Decided to ship option B (defer option A to next quarter). Reasoning: cost of A is ~2x, benefit similar.
- Decided to extend the deadline to 2026-05-15 to accommodate legal review.
## Discussion notes
[Only the bits that matter for context. Short.]
## Open questions
- How do we handle migration for existing users? — owner: alice, target date for answer: 2026-04-29.
## Next meeting
2026-04-30, 14:00 UTC. Agenda: review RFC, legal feedback.
Non-negotiable rules
- Action items have an owner and a deadline. No owner = nobody does it. No deadline = it never happens. Both required.
- Use
@name for owners. Not "the team", not "we", not "someone". A single person.
- Decisions section is just decisions. Not discussions. "We decided X because Y." If there's no decision, don't fake one.
- Action items go first. Most readers just want to know what they owe. Put it at the top, above the discussion.
- Decisions use past tense. "Decided to ship B." Not "will ship B" (that's an action item) and not "discussed shipping B" (that's nothing).
- Don't transcribe. A paragraph-long summary of discussion defeats the point. Notes ≠ recording.
- Share within 15 minutes. Notes sent two days later get read by nobody.
- Flag missing people. If a decision was made without a key person, flag it: "⚠️ Alice not present; confirm with her before executing."
Output
- For live-note use: fill the template during the meeting, clean up after.
- For transcript-to-notes: extract decisions + action items + open questions into the template structure. Ignore the small talk.
- For prep: fill the top half (attendees, purpose, agenda, open questions); leave action items + decisions blank.
References
- Template — the full copy-paste template, with examples and variants.
- Action items — what makes a good action item, how to write them so they actually get done.
- Meeting types — standups, 1-on-1s, retros, planning, kickoff, status — template variations for each.
