Meeting notes template
A doc your agent fills in during or after any call — then you share one link. Attendees comment inline, action items land on the exact line they belong to, and nobody has to chase the notes down.
Most meeting notes fail after they're written. The doc goes into a shared drive, the action items stay in the meeting chat, and by Thursday nobody remembers who owned what. The template isn't the problem — the share step is. Draft the notes with your agent, publish them as a Drafty link, and the feedback lands on the exact line instead of a reply-all thread.
Generate it with your agent
Paste this into Claude, Codex, or any agent — it writes the notes and publishes them as a commentable link:
See it on a real one
What goes in a meeting notes template
Five sections. Everything else is a transcript nobody asked for.
- Meeting details — date, attendees, and who called it. Takes 10 seconds to fill; saves a week of "wait, who was on that call?"
- Agenda items — one short paragraph per topic. What was discussed, not what everyone said. If you can't summarize a 20-minute discussion in three sentences, the meeting needed a clearer goal.
- Decisions — the conclusions, separated from the discussion. "We decided to push the launch to Q3" belongs here, not buried in a paragraph. This section is what absentees actually need.
- Action items — the most misused section in every template. Each item needs three things: one owner (not "the team"), a specific task, and a firm deadline. "Alex will finalize the pricing proposal by Friday" works. "Discuss pricing further" doesn't.
- Open questions — what's unresolved and who's responsible for resolving it. Naming the question is more useful than ignoring it.
The section most templates get wrong
Action items. Analysis by Glyph AI found that over a third of action items from meeting summaries never make it into any task system — they exist in the notes and nowhere else. The fix isn't a fancier template. It's making the notes the living document: share the link, let the owner comment "done" on their line, and your agent ships the updated version on the same URL.
The format that works: [Owner] will [verb + specific deliverable] by [date].
"Sam will send the revised contract to legal by Wednesday" is an action item. "Sam to follow up on contract" is a to-do nobody will do.
Meeting notes vs. meeting minutes
People use these interchangeably, but there's a practical difference. Minutes are a formal record — used in board meetings, legal contexts, and anywhere you need a verbatim account of motions and votes. Notes are a working document for your team: decisions, owners, and what happens next. For most maker and PM meetings, notes are what you want. Reach for minutes only when you need an official record.
FAQ
What should always be included in meeting notes? Attendees, one-paragraph summaries per agenda item, decisions made, and action items with a single owner and a deadline. Context helps — but keep it to what someone who wasn't there would need, not a full transcript.
How do you write action items that actually get done? One owner. A specific deliverable. A firm date. "The team will look into this" is not an action item. "Jordan will research three vendor options and share a comparison by next Tuesday" is. If you can't name the owner or the deadline before you leave the meeting, the item won't get done.
Who should take meeting notes? Not the meeting facilitator — they can't run the room and write at the same time. Rotate ownership or use an agent to draft from the agenda and fill in after. The note-taker's job is to capture decisions and action items, not to transcribe.
What's the difference between meeting notes and meeting minutes? Minutes are a formal, verbatim record (board meetings, legal contexts). Notes are a working summary for the team — decisions and next steps, not a full transcript. Most teams need notes, not minutes.
How should meeting notes be shared? Not emailed as an attachment. A link people can comment on inline keeps feedback tied to the specific line it's about — no reply-all chains reconstructing what was meant. Share the link in Slack or the calendar invite; anyone can comment without an account.
How long should meeting notes be? Long enough to capture every decision and action item; short enough to be read in two minutes. One paragraph per agenda item is the right constraint. If the notes take longer to read than the meeting did, they're not notes — they're a transcript.