Minutes that read the same whoever took them - a template, not a writing style

Background

Ask five people to take minutes for the same meeting and you'll get five different documents - one a near-transcript, one three bullet points, one that captures every joke and misses the one decision that mattered. The usual fix is a "minutes template" in a shared drive that everyone's supposed to use and almost nobody actually opens, because filling in a blank template from scratch is exactly as much effort as writing minutes freehand, so people default back to whatever they already do.

The better fix is the same idea this site uses everywhere else: don't ask for minutes, ask for a fixed structure - decisions, owners, deadlines, open questions - and feed it your actual scrappy notes, however messy. The model doesn't care whether your notes are full sentences or a string of half-finished fragments; it cares whether the structure it returns is consistent every single time, which is the one thing a shared template was trying and failing to guarantee.

Setup

The shape every template below follows:

• Role - what kind of minutes-writer it's being, so it knows what to keep and what to drop.
• Context - what you're pasting in (raw notes, however rough) and what you want back (the fixed structure, nothing else).
• Inputs - the actual notes, attendee list, and meeting purpose.
• Task - what counts as a decision versus a discussion point versus an action.
• Constraints - never invent an owner, never invent a decision that wasn't actually made.

Standard minutes from scrappy notes

For the everyday team meeting - fast, rough notes in, clean minutes out:

You're turning rough meeting notes into structured minutes, not
transcribing them.

Context: I'll paste my raw notes exactly as I took them, including
fragments and shorthand. Return minutes in a fixed structure - nothing
extra, nothing missing.

Inputs:
- Meeting purpose: [ONE LINE]
- Attendees: [LIST]
- My raw notes, unedited: [PASTE]

Task: return, under these exact headings - Attendees, Decisions made (with
who made the call, if stated), Actions (owner and deadline for each - "no
deadline given" if none was stated), Open questions (things raised but not
resolved). Leave a section empty rather than padding it with something
that wasn't actually said.

Constraints: never assign an action to someone not in the attendee list.
Never state a decision as made if the notes only show it being discussed -
that goes under open questions instead.

Decision-only extract for people who weren't there

For the version that goes to stakeholders who don't need the whole meeting, just what changed:

You're extracting only what a non-attendee needs to know from a meeting -
not a summary of the discussion.

Context: return a short brief, three sections maximum, for someone who
wasn't in the room and doesn't need to be brought up to speed on the
conversation, only the outcome.

Inputs:
- Full minutes or raw notes: [PASTE]
- Who this brief is for and what they care about: [e.g. FINANCE - BUDGET
  IMPACT ONLY]

Task: return Decisions that affect them, Actions that land on their team or
budget, and anything they need to do or approve as a result. Everything
else from the meeting gets left out entirely - this isn't a shorter version
of the minutes, it's a different document with a different audience.

Constraints: if nothing in the meeting actually affects the stated
audience, say so directly rather than stretching an unrelated point to fill
the brief.

Recurring meeting - carry-forward tracker

For a standing weekly or monthly meeting where last time's open actions need to show up again, not get lost between sessions:

You're merging this meeting's minutes with the previous session's
outstanding actions into one running tracker.

Context: return a single table - not two separate lists - showing every
action still open, whichever meeting it came from.

Inputs:
- Previous tracker (actions not yet marked done): [PASTE]
- This meeting's new minutes: [PASTE]

Task: carry forward any action from the previous tracker that wasn't
closed, add this meeting's new actions, and flag anything carried forward
for a third consecutive session as needing escalation rather than another
quiet carry-forward.

Constraints: never silently drop a carried-forward action because it
wasn't mentioned again this time - absence isn't the same as it being
done. Only remove an action if this meeting's notes explicitly show it was
completed.

House-style formatting pass

For making minutes from different people actually look like they came from the same organisation, after the content's already right:

You're applying a fixed formatting style to already-correct minutes - you
are not changing what they say.

Context: reformat only. Don't add, remove or reinterpret any decision,
action or open question.

Inputs:
- Draft minutes, any format: [PASTE]
- House style rules: [e.g. HEADINGS IN TITLE CASE, DATES AS DD/MM/YYYY,
  OWNERS BOLDED, ACTIONS AS A NUMBERED LIST]

Task: apply the stated formatting rules exactly, and flag anything in the
draft you genuinely couldn't format without changing its meaning (an
action with no clear owner to bold, for instance), rather than guessing.

Constraints: word-for-word content stays the same except for genuine
formatting changes. If you're unsure whether a change is "formatting" or
"rewording", leave it as written and flag it instead.