The summary prompt
Turn a transcript into something you can send round.
WhoTalked writes the transcript. This prompt turns it into a briefing: a TL;DR, a plain summary of the conversation, the decisions, and who owes what by when. The answer comes back as a single HTML file you can open in a browser, print, or attach to an email.
It works with ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, or any assistant that takes a long piece of text. Nothing here is specific to one of them.
- Export the meeting from WhoTalkedThe export button at the top of the transcript. Plain text or Markdown, either is fine.
- Copy the prompt below and paste it into your AIThen paste the transcript underneath it, where the prompt says to.
- Save the answer as a file ending in .htmlOpen it in your browser. That is the whole briefing, formatted, ready to send on.
The prompt
You are turning a meeting transcript into a short, well-made briefing page.
The transcript below was produced by WhoTalked, which records a meeting on the
participant's own computer and labels each line with the speaker's name. The names are
ones the user confirmed, except where a line is tagged "best guess" or a speaker is
called something like "Speaker A", which means the software was not certain who it was.
Produce ONE complete, self-contained HTML file and nothing else. No explanation before
or after it, and no markdown code fences. Start at <!DOCTYPE html> and end at
</html>.
WHAT GOES ON THE PAGE, in this order
1. A header: the meeting title (infer a sensible one, or use "Meeting notes"), the date
if the transcript gives one, who was there, and how long it ran if you can tell.
2. TL;DR. Three to five bullets, one line each. Somebody who reads only this section must
come away knowing what happened and what changes as a result.
3. Summary. Six to twelve sentences of prose, following the order the meeting actually
went in. Plain language. No sub-headings, no bullets, and no jargon that was not
already used in the room.
4. Decisions. What was actually settled, one line each, and who settled it. If nothing
was decided, write "Nothing was decided" and move on.
5. Action items. A table with three columns: what needs doing, who owns it, and when it
is due. The owner must be a name that appears in the transcript; if nobody was named,
write "Unassigned". If no date was given, write "No date". If there are no action
items, write "No action items" rather than inventing any.
6. Open questions. Things raised and left hanging. Leave the section out entirely if
there were none.
7. Who spoke. One horizontal bar per person, showing roughly how much of the meeting they
held, worked out from how much of the transcript is theirs. Leave it out if there is
only one speaker.
ACCURACY RULES, which matter more than the formatting
- Use only what is in the transcript. Do not add background, do not infer decisions that
were not made, and do not soften or sharpen what anyone said.
- Never put words in the wrong person's mouth. Where a line is tagged "best guess", or
the speaker is unnamed, and it ends up in the summary or an action item, mark that
attribution in the output with a small "unconfirmed" tag.
- If the transcript is garbled, cuts off part way, or is obviously missing a stretch, say
so in one sentence at the top of the summary instead of writing around it.
- Quote sparingly, and only word for word.
- No "next steps" or "follow-up" section unless one was genuinely discussed.
- If the transcript is too short or too fragmentary to support a briefing, say that
plainly in the HTML rather than padding it out.
HOW IT SHOULD LOOK
A single <style> block in the head. No external stylesheets, fonts, scripts or
images: the file has to work with no internet connection.
Use these colours exactly:
page background #0b0d11, panels #1a1c22, hairlines rgba(255,255,255,0.08)
body text #e8eaf0, muted text #a7aebc
blue #5b8cff, green #22c55e, amber #f0b429
Font stack: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, sans-serif. Use a
monospace face only for timestamps and small tags.
One centred column, max-width 820px, generous line height, and comfortable to read on a
phone. Separate sections with a hairline rule rather than nesting boxes inside boxes.
Give each action-item owner a small coloured tag.
For the "who spoke" bars, use exactly this shape, because a height on an inline element
does nothing and the bars silently vanish:
<div class="bar">
<div class="who">Priya Raman</div>
<div class="track"><div class="fill" style="width:44%"></div></div>
<div class="pct">44%</div>
</div>
with .bar as a three-column grid, and .track and .fill both given an explicit height.
Anything you give a height or a background colour to must be a block-level element. No
charting library.
Add a print stylesheet that switches to black text on white and drops the panel
backgrounds, so it prints cleanly on a page or two.
Add a light-mode fallback under @media (prefers-color-scheme: light) so it stays readable
for anyone whose system is set to light.
THE TRANSCRIPT
[paste your WhoTalked transcript here]
Select the text and copy it if the button does not work.
See what it produces — a finished briefing from a short meeting that never happened, generated by this exact prompt and left untouched.
What comes back
A page, not a wall of bullet points.
The point of asking for an HTML file rather than a chat reply is that you get something finished. It opens in a browser, prints properly, and can be attached to an email without anybody needing an account to read it.
The accuracy rules in the prompt are doing real work. Meeting summaries go wrong in one specific way, which is confidently assigning an action item to the wrong person. Because a WhoTalked transcript already carries names, and marks the lines it was unsure about, the prompt can tell the AI to carry that uncertainty through instead of quietly resolving it.
Tweak it. It is a starting point, not scripture. If your meetings always need a risks section, add one.
TL;DR
- Design review moves to Thursday.
- Timeline holds; budget deferred to next week.
Action items
- You Send the updated calendar invite. No date
- Marcus Boyle Move the standup. Before Thursday
- Priya Raman Flag knock‑on effects. No date
Who spoke
An illustration of the shape the prompt asks for. Your own meeting will not look like this one.
Record the next one yourself.
One payment, up to three computers, and the recording never leaves them.