Minutes — Meeting Notes with Append Updates

Minutes captures structured meeting notes, stores them in the Distillery knowledge base, and supports appending updates or listing recent meetings.

When to Use

Capture notes from a meeting or call (/minutes)
Append notes to an existing meeting (/minutes --update <meeting_id>)
View recent meetings (/minutes --list)

Process

Step 1: Check MCP

See CONVENTIONS.md — skip if already confirmed this conversation.

Step 2: Parse Mode

No flags → New Meeting Mode (default)
--update <meeting_id> → Update Mode
--list → List Mode

Optional flags (all modes):

Flag	Parameter	Description
`--project`	`<name>`	Filter by project name (used in List Mode to scope results)

New Meeting Mode (default)

Step 3a: Gather Meeting Details

Collect from the user (or extract from invocation context): title/topic, attendees, key discussion points, decisions, action items (with owners), and optional follow-ups. Require at least a title and one discussion point, decision, or action item.

Step 4a: Generate meeting_id

Format: <slugified-title>-<YYYY-MM-DD> — lowercase, replace non-alphanumeric with hyphens, collapse multiples.

Examples: "Architecture Review" on 2026-03-22 → arch-review-2026-03-22, "Daily Standup" → daily-standup-2026-03-22

Step 5a: Format and Preview

Compose structured notes:

# Meeting: <Title>

**Date:** <YYYY-MM-DD>
**Attendees:** <comma-separated list>
**Meeting ID:** <meeting_id>

## Discussion
<bullet list or short paragraphs>

## Decisions
<bullet list>

## Action Items
<bullet list with owners/deadlines>

## Follow-ups
<if any — omit section if empty>

Show preview and ask: Ready to store? (yes / edit / skip). If skip: "Skipped. No meeting entry was stored."

Step 6a: Author, Project, Tags

Determine author & project per CONVENTIONS.md. Auto-extract 2-5 lowercase, hyphen-separated tags from the content.

Step 6.5: Check for Duplicates

First, check for an existing meeting with the same meeting_id:

distillery_search(query="<meeting_id>", entry_type="minutes", limit=5)

If any result has metadata.meeting_id == <meeting_id>, treat this as a duplicate meeting record. Display:

A meeting entry with ID "<meeting_id>" already exists (entry <entry-id>).
Use /minutes --update <meeting_id> to append new content instead.
Proceed anyway? (yes / skip)

If user chooses skip: "Skipped. No new entry was stored." and stop.

If no meeting_id match found, call distillery_find_similar(content="<meeting notes summary>", dedup_action=True). Handle by action field:

"create": No similar entries. Proceed to Step 7a.

"skip": Near-exact duplicate. Show similarity table and offer: (1) Store anyway, (2) Skip.

"merge": Very similar entry exists. Show similarity table and offer: (1) Store anyway, (2) Merge with existing, (3) Skip.

For merge: combine new notes with the most similar entry's content, call distillery_update with the entry ID and merged content, confirm and stop.

"link": Related but distinct. Show similarity table, note new entry will be linked. Ask to proceed or skip. If proceeding, include "related_entries": ["<id1>", ...] in metadata at Step 7a.

Similar entries found:

| Entry ID | Similarity | Preview |
|----------|-----------|---------|
| <id>     | <score%>  | <content_preview> |

On skip in any case: "Skipped. No new entry was stored." and stop.

Step 7a: Store Entry

distillery_store(
  content="<formatted notes>",
  entry_type="minutes",
  author="<author>",
  project="<project>",
  tags=[...],
  metadata={
    "meeting_id": "<meeting_id>",
    "attendees": ["<attendee1>", ...],
    "version": 1
  }
)

On MCP errors, see CONVENTIONS.md error handling — display and stop.

Step 8a: Confirm

[minutes] Stored: <entry-id>
Project: <project> | Author: <author>
Summary: <first 200 chars of notes>...
Tags: tag1, tag2, tag3

Update Mode (/minutes --update <meeting_id>)

Step 3b: Find Existing Meeting

distillery_search(query="<meeting_id>", entry_type="minutes", limit=5)

Match on metadata.meeting_id. If no match: offer to create a new meeting instead, or stop with "No changes made." The --update flag requires a meeting_id; if omitted, ask which meeting to update.

Step 4b: Gather Update Content

Show a brief summary of the existing meeting (title, date, version). Collect new notes, decisions, action item updates, or corrections. Require at least one meaningful addition.

Step 5b: Compose and Preview Update

Append under a timestamped heading (never overwrite original):

## Update — <YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS UTC>

<new content>

Show the appended section and ask: Ready to append? (yes / edit / skip)

Step 6b: Update Entry

Set new_version = current_version + 1. Call distillery_update with the full content (original + appended section) and updated metadata including the new version.

On MCP errors, see CONVENTIONS.md error handling — display and stop.

Step 7b: Confirm

[minutes] Stored: <entry-id>
Project: <project> | Author: <author>
Summary: <first 200 chars of update section>...
Tags: tag1, tag2, tag3

List Mode (/minutes --list)

Step 3c: List Recent Meetings

distillery_list(entry_type="minutes", limit=10, output_mode="full")

If --project was specified, also pass project=<name> to scope results to that project.

If none found: "No meeting entries found. Use /minutes to capture your first meeting."

Otherwise display a compact table:

Recent Meetings (10 most recent):

| Meeting ID                   | Title                | Date       | Attendees |
|------------------------------|----------------------|------------|-----------|
| arch-review-2026-03-22       | Architecture Review  | 2026-03-22 | 4         |

Columns: metadata.meeting_id, title from # Meeting: heading, date from content or created_at, count of metadata.attendees.

Rules

meeting_id format: <slugified-title>-<YYYY-MM-DD>
Updates always append under ## Update — <timestamp>; never overwrite original content
version starts at 1, increments by 1 on each update
Always preview notes/updates before storing
Always use entry_type="minutes" for store/list/search calls
metadata.attendees must be a list of strings, not comma-separated
Tags must be lowercase and hyphen-separated
Follow shared author/project/error patterns from CONVENTIONS.md
No retry loops — if a tool fails after one attempt, report and stop