Meeting agenda template in Markdown: goal, topics and times

This meeting agenda template sets up one plain Markdown file that the person calling a meeting writes before the meeting starts. The file names the meeting and its date, gives the goal in one sentence, lists what to read first, and numbers the topics, each with the person who leads it and the minutes it gets.

What follows: the template, a line or so on what every part is for, a sample built around a made-up company, tips on keeping the agenda short, and a choice of file name. Since this template is only plain text, you can type it into whichever text editor you use now, with nothing to install.

Agenda files and minutes files

In this post, an agenda is one .md file per meeting, which the person who called the meeting writes before it starts. The file sets out what the meeting is for, what the people coming should read ahead of time, and the topics in the order they come up.

A minutes file covers the same meeting from the other side. The agenda file is written before the meeting and lists what will be raised, while the minutes file gets written during the meeting or after it ends, and records what was decided. That second file has a template of its own, the meeting minutes template, which also carries a short numbered list of topics.

Agenda template in one block

Here is this post's template. Create an .md file with nothing in it yet, copy the block over, and type your meeting's details in place of the placeholders.

# Agenda: name of the meeting, YYYY-MM-DD

- Day: the weekday of the meeting
- Time: HH:MM to HH:MM
- Place: the room where you meet
- Led by: your name
- People: First Person, Second Person

## Goal

One sentence on what the meeting is meant to settle.

## Read first

- One file or item to read before the meeting.

## Topics

1. First topic, led by Name, NN minutes
2. Second topic, led by Name, NN minutes
3. Third topic, led by Name, NN minutes

From the top, the block's parts:

• Title line. The title line is a level-one heading that holds the word Agenda, the meeting name and the date, year first, so line one says which meeting the file is for.
• Day and Time. The weekday of the meeting, then the time it starts and the time it ends.
• Place. The room where the meeting takes place.
• Led by. Your name, since you called the meeting and you write the file.
• People. The names of everyone coming, with a comma after each name but the last.
• Goal. One sentence on what the meeting is meant to settle.
• Read first. One dash line for each file or item to read before the meeting, named so the people coming can find it.
• Topics. One numbered line per topic, in the order the topics come up, with the name of the person who leads it and the number of minutes it gets.

Under the title, the header is a dash list of five lines. The topics form a numbered list, and the numbered lists guide explains how Markdown counts a numbered list from the number on its first line.

A sample for Doe Holdings

This sample is invented from top to bottom. Doe Holdings is a stand-in company, with John Doe and Jane Doe as its two staff. Jane Doe calls a meeting with John Doe to plan the front desk rota and a training day.

# Agenda: front desk planning, 2026-10-27

- Day: Tuesday
- Time: 10:00 to 10:45
- Place: small meeting room
- Led by: Jane Doe
- People: Jane Doe, John Doe

## Goal

Jane Doe and John Doe settle the November front desk rota and pick a date for the training day.

## Read first

- front-desk-rota.md, the draft rota John Doe wrote
- training-day.md, with the two dates Jane Doe has in mind: Thursday 2026-11-12 and Friday 2026-11-13

## Topics

1. November front desk rota, led by John Doe, 20 minutes
2. A date for the training day, led by Jane Doe, 15 minutes
3. Front desk cover on the training day, led by John Doe, 10 minutes

The Time line runs from 10:00 to 10:45, which makes 45 minutes. The three topics get 20, 15 and 10 minutes, and those add up to the same 45.

Two topics name John Doe as the person who leads them, and one names Jane Doe. The second line under Read first lists the two dates on offer for the training day, and under the second topic, John Doe and Jane Doe pick one of those dates.

Ways to keep an agenda short and plain

This template is built to keep the agenda short and plain. Every tip below rests on what the template, the sample or both show:

• One sentence for the goal. The template's Goal heading holds one placeholder sentence, and the sample's goal is one sentence about the rota and the training day.
• One line per topic. Topics take a single numbered line apiece, in the template as well as in the sample.
• A name and minutes on each topic. Each sample topic line names who leads it and gives its minutes: 20, 15 and 10.
• Reading listed before the topics. In the template, the Read first heading comes ahead of the Topics heading, so the files to read sit above the list of what the meeting covers.
• A dated title line. The template's title line closes on the YYYY-MM-DD placeholder, and the sample's reads 2026-10-27.

The status report template covers a different file from this agenda, one that sums up a single person's week under four headed lists.

A topic still at the raw-idea stage gets a brainstorm file of its own.

Naming each agenda file

Here, each meeting gets one agenda file, kept in the same meetings/ folder the minutes post uses. Its name opens with the meeting's date, written year first, followed by two or three words about the meeting and then the word agenda: meetings/2026-10-27-front-desk-agenda.md. That name and the sample's title line carry one date, 2026-10-27.

If the minutes of that meeting get a name that also starts with 2026-10-27, the two files sort together with the other files from that date. The post about naming Markdown files covers why a date written year first, leading the name, keeps files in date order, and which files call for a date in the name at all.

Where Sashmark fits

In its planned form, Sashmark is a single desktop app for Markdown, designed for reading a file and for editing it, and meant for people whose .md files come from AI agents. Each of its parts is in development, with none of them out yet. Agendas and minutes kept in a project folder, beside that project's remaining .md files, make up a file set Sashmark is planned for.

See the planned features, the help pages and the roadmap for where each part stands.

Visit sashmark.com.