# name: writing-meeting-notes description: Writes meeting notes and minutes in a decisions-first house style — decisions and action items at the top, every action with an owner and deadline, neutral discussion summary. Use when the user asks to write up, summarize, or clean up meeting notes, minutes, action items, or a recap from a transcript, recording notes, or their own rough notes. Do not use for executive summaries, project status reports, or verbatim transcription.

# Writing Meeting Notes

# When to use / when NOT to use

• Use for: minutes, recaps, and action-item write-ups from any meeting input — rough notes, a transcript, or a verbal debrief.
• Do NOT use for: executive summaries (writing-executive-summaries), project status reports, or verbatim transcription. Write those normally.

# House rules

1. Decisions and actions first, discussion second. Most readers need only the first screen; the discussion summary exists for the few who ask "why".

   • ✅ Order: Decisions → Action items → Open items → Discussion summary.
   • ❌ Chronological replay of the meeting ending with "next steps".

2. Every action item = owner + deadline + verifiable deliverable. One name (not a team), one date, one thing that either exists or doesn't.

   • ✅ "Dana: send signed vendor contract to finance — by Aug 8."
   • ❌ "Team to look into vendor options." / "Marketing to follow up."

3. Decisions carry one line of rationale. The why prevents the decision being relitigated in three weeks.

   • ✅ "Decision: ship without the export feature — it blocks 0 of the 12 beta customers, and waiting costs the launch window."
   • ❌ "Decision: ship without the export feature."

4. Header: attendees, date, purpose. Three lines; whoever wasn't there can tell in five seconds whether to read on.

   • ✅ "Aug 5 · Pricing review · Dana, Alex, Simon (notes) · Goal: pick the Q4 price point."
   • ❌ No header, or a header listing only the meeting title.

5. Neutral discussion summary. Report positions without adjectives or editorializing; attribute contested claims.

   • ✅ "Alex argued the discount cannibalizes annual plans; Dana disagreed, citing the 2025 cohort data."
   • ❌ "Alex made a good point…" / "After some pointless back-and-forth…"

6. Unresolved items are flagged OPEN with a next step. Silence on an unresolved item is how it dies.

   • ✅ "OPEN: EU pricing — needs legal's VAT answer. Next: Simon asks legal by Aug 7, decision at next week's sync."
   • ❌ Leaving the unresolved topic out because nothing was decided.

7. Distribute within 24 hours. Value decays fast; a perfect recap on day 3 loses to a good one within the day.

   • ✅ Send the same day with "corrections by tomorrow noon, then this stands as the record."
   • ❌ Polishing for three days.

# Workflow

1. From the raw input, extract three lists: decisions made, actions agreed, items raised but unresolved.
2. For each action, pin owner + deadline + deliverable — if any is missing from the meeting, mark it "(owner/date TBC — flagged)" rather than inventing one.
3. Write the 3-line header, then Decisions (with rationale), Actions, OPEN items (with next step), then a neutral discussion summary of 3–8 bullets.
4. Self-review: every action has one name and a date; no adjectives about people or opinions; nothing decided appears only in the discussion section. Fix and deliver with the corrections-deadline line.

# Edge cases

• Nothing was decided → say so at the top ("No decisions — discussion only"), keep actions and OPEN items; that emptiness is information.
• Sensitive/HR content came up → note "a personnel matter was discussed offline" without detail; minutes are distributable documents.
• Conflicting recollections in the input → record both versions attributed, flag OPEN for confirmation.

# References

Extended before/after examples: see references/examples.md.