--- title: "Meeting minutes template in Markdown: decisions and tasks" slug: markdown-meeting-minutes-template excerpt: "The section The meeting minutes template has a fenced block you can copy whole into an .md file of your own, with the parts explained after it." quickAnswer: "Under The meeting minutes template, you get a Markdown block holding a title with a date, a Who came line, a numbered agenda, and headings for discussion, decisions, action items and open questions, then a short word on the job of every part." keyTakeaways: - "The section What meeting minutes are for explains what one minutes file records and where a decision record takes over." - "The section Sample minutes from Doe Holdings shows the template filled in for a made-up meeting about an office move." - "The section Keeping minutes clear and short lists five tips, each backed by a line in the template or the sample." - "Under Keeping minutes clear and short, one sentence points to the status report template for a week of one person's work." - "The section A meetings folder and file names puts one dated file per meeting in a meetings folder and points to the file naming guide and the postmortem template." publishedDate: 2026-10-22 dateModified: 2026-10-22 author: Bobby Huang cluster: A role: post status: published faq: - q: "What goes in action items?" a: "Under Sample minutes from Doe Holdings, three action items each give a name, a task and a date." - q: "Are meeting minutes the same as a decision record?" a: "Under What meeting minutes are for, the post sets minutes beside a decision record and points to the template for that file." - q: "Where should minutes files go?" a: "Under A meetings folder and file names, this post picks a folder and a pattern for file names." related: - markdown-decision-record-template - markdown-status-report-template - markdown-file-naming - markdown-postmortem-template --- A meeting minutes template turns one meeting into one short Markdown file. The file records the date, who came, the agenda, what people discussed, what they decided, who does what next and by when, and what is still open. This post holds the template, a sentence or two on each part, a sample filled in for an invented office, and tips on keeping minutes clear. You need nothing beyond a text editor, and there's no install step. ## What meeting minutes are for Meeting minutes are one .md file for one meeting. The file holds what the meeting settled and who took which task. The people at the meeting take the tasks, and the minutes give each task a line that names its person and its date, so the file shows who owes what and by when. Minutes list the short decisions of one meeting, one line each. A decision that needs its context and its rejected options written out gets its own file. Start that file from the [decision record template](markdown-decision-record-template.md). ## The meeting minutes template The block below is a template made for this post. Put the block in a fresh .md file and swap each placeholder for what happened at your meeting. The title line and the Who came line come first, and each part after them has its own heading. Fill the block in while the meeting runs or once it ends. ```markdown # Minutes: name of the meeting, YYYY-MM-DD Who came: First Person, Second Person, Third Person ## Agenda 1. First topic 2. Second topic 3. Third topic ## Discussion First topic: a few lines on what people said and why. Second topic: a few lines on what people said and why. ## Decisions - One decision, in one short sentence. ## Action items - Name: the task, by YYYY-MM-DD ## Open questions - A question the meeting raised and did not settle. ``` The parts, in order: - **Title.** "Minutes:" plus the name of the meeting and its `YYYY-MM-DD` date, which tells you from the first line which meeting the file covers. - **Who came.** One line naming everyone at the meeting, with commas between the names. The sample's line reads "Who came: Jane Doe, John Doe". - **Agenda.** The topics, numbered in the order the meeting took them. - **Discussion.** A short paragraph for each topic on what people said and why. Each paragraph starts with the name of its topic, which ties it back to the agenda. - **Decisions.** One line for each thing the meeting settled. - **Action items.** A line for each task: the person's name, a colon, the task, then "by" and a date. - **Open questions.** Points the meeting raised and left open, so a later meeting can take them up. ## Sample minutes from Doe Holdings Here the template is filled in for one meeting. Jane Doe, John Doe, their company Doe Holdings and the meeting itself are all made up. ```markdown # Minutes: office move planning, 2026-10-21 Who came: Jane Doe, John Doe ## Agenda 1. Moving day 2. Packing the supply room 3. Keys for the new office ## Discussion Moving day: Jane Doe found two open Saturdays, 2026-11-07 and 2026-11-14. John Doe said the earlier date leaves too little time to pack. Packing the supply room: Jane Doe counted enough supplies to fill about 20 boxes. Jane Doe and John Doe agreed to label each box with the room it goes to. Keys for the new office: John Doe said one named person from Doe Holdings picks up the keys. Jane Doe and John Doe don't know yet whether spare keys come with the office. ## Decisions - Jane Doe and John Doe set the move for Saturday 2026-11-14. - Jane Doe and John Doe label each box with the room it goes to. - Jane Doe picks up the keys for Doe Holdings. ## Action items - Jane Doe: book the moving van for 2026-11-14, by 2026-10-28 - John Doe: buy labels and 25 boxes, by 2026-10-30 - Jane Doe: ask when the keys can be picked up, by 2026-11-04 ## Open questions - Jane Doe wants to know if spare keys come with the new office. ``` Each line under Decisions goes with one topic from the agenda. The spare keys question is nobody's task yet and has no date, so it sits under Open questions and stays out of Action items. The action items follow from the decisions. The moving day decision leads to Jane Doe booking the van for 2026-11-14, and the label decision leads to John Doe buying labels and boxes. ## Keeping minutes clear and short The aim of this template is minutes that say plainly what was decided and who does what next. Each tip below rests on the template or the sample: - **One decision per line.** The sample's Decisions part holds three lines, and each one is a short, whole sentence. - **A name, a task and a date on each action item.** Each of the three action items in the sample starts with Jane Doe or John Doe and ends with a "by" date. - **Keep the discussion brief.** In the sample, each agenda topic gets one short paragraph under Discussion, led by the name of the topic. - **Park what isn't settled.** In the sample, the spare keys question is nobody's task yet and carries no date, so it goes under Open questions. - **Write dates in full.** Each date in the sample is written as year, month and day, such as 2026-11-14. For one person's week of work, the [status report template](markdown-status-report-template.md) sets up a different file from the minutes of one meeting. Feedback for one person goes in [a feedback file](markdown-feedback-template.md) of its own. ## A meetings folder and file names Here, minutes go in a `meetings/` folder. Each meeting gets its own file, and the name starts with the meeting date, year first, such as `meetings/2026-10-21-office-move.md`. That date matches the one in the title line of the file. The [file naming guide](markdown-file-naming.md) explains why names that start with a year-first date sort in date order, and why a file should keep its name once links point to it. If a meeting looks back at a problem that someone found and fixed, write that account up separately. The [postmortem template](markdown-postmortem-template.md) lays out a timeline, the causes, and action items with owners and dates. The topics for a meeting, set down before it starts, go in [an agenda file](markdown-meeting-agenda-template.md) of their own. ## Where Sashmark fits Sashmark will be a Markdown reader and a Markdown editor in one, planned as desktop software for people with .md files that come from AI agents. No part of Sashmark is out yet, and the whole project is in development. Sashmark is planned for file sets like a meetings folder that holds one minutes file per meeting. See the [planned features](/features), the [help pages](/help) and the [roadmap](/roadmap) for where each part stands. Visit [sashmark.com](https://www.sashmark.com/).