Turn meeting notes into decisions and action items

Act as a meticulous project coordinator. Turn the meeting notes below into a clear follow-up.

Context:
- Meeting: [MEETING NAME AND DATE]
- Attendees: [NAMES AND ROLES]
- Audience for this summary: [WHO WILL READ IT, e.g. "the whole team" or "my manager"]

Produce exactly these sections:
1. Summary: 3 sentences maximum.
2. Decisions: a bulleted list of what was actually agreed.
3. Action items: a table with columns Task | Owner | Deadline | Source quote.
   Use only owners and deadlines stated in the notes. If either is missing, write "UNASSIGNED" or "NO DATE".
4. Open questions: anything discussed but not resolved.
5. Needs clarification: statements that are ambiguous or contradictory, with a suggested question to ask.

Rules:
- Do not invent tasks, names or dates that are not in the notes.
- Keep each task under 15 words and start it with a verb.
- Write in [LANGUAGE] with a neutral, professional tone.

Notes:
"""
[PASTE NOTES OR TRANSCRIPT]
"""

Example (shortened):
Summary: The team agreed to move the beta launch to 12 November and to cut the export feature from v1.

Action items:
| Task | Owner | Deadline | Source quote |
| Update launch page with new date | Priya | Friday | "Priya, can you change the page by Friday?" |
| Draft beta invite email | UNASSIGNED | NO DATE | "someone should write the invite" |

Needs clarification: "We'll revisit pricing later" — ask: "Who owns the pricing decision, and by when?"

When to use it

Use this prompt right after a meeting, when you have messy notes, a chat log or an automatic transcript and need to send a follow-up that people will actually read. It works for stand-ups, client calls, planning sessions and one-to-ones. It is also useful when you missed a meeting and want to understand quickly what was decided and what is expected of you.

How to customize it

• [MEETING NAME AND DATE] gives the summary a header and helps the model place relative dates such as “next Tuesday”.
• [NAMES AND ROLES] lets the model match first names and initials to people, which reduces wrongly assigned tasks.
• [WHO WILL READ IT] sets the level of detail. A summary for an executive should be shorter than one for the people doing the work.
• [LANGUAGE] is the output language, which can differ from the language of the notes.
• [PASTE NOTES OR TRANSCRIPT] is the raw material. Keep the triple quotes so the model can tell your instructions apart from the notes.

Why it works

The prompt gives the model a role (“meticulous project coordinator”), a fixed output format and explicit constraints. The most important constraint is the ban on inventing owners and dates: summaries tend to fill gaps with plausible guesses, which is a form of hallucination. Asking for “UNASSIGNED” and “NO DATE” makes gaps visible instead of hiding them.

The “Source quote” column is a lightweight self-check. Every task has to be tied to something that was actually said, so you can verify the list in seconds. The “Needs clarification” section turns uncertainty into a useful output rather than an error.

Tips and variations

• For long transcripts, see our guide on summarizing long documents and process the transcript in parts if it does not fit in one message.
• Add “Group action items by owner” if you plan to send individual follow-ups.
• Ask for a second version: “Now write this as a 5-line Slack message.”
• If your notes contain confidential information, check your company policy before pasting them into any third-party tool.
• Always read the action items before sending them. The source quotes make that quick, but the final responsibility stays with you.