Using Minutes

Record a meeting. Click Start Recording in the main window, or use the command palette. Audio is captured and transcribed locally; the meeting lands as markdown in ~/meetings/ with speakers, action items, and decisions.

Calls (Zoom, Teams, Webex). Minutes detects desktop call apps and shows a "Call detected" banner; record from it to capture both sides natively (no virtual audio devices). Google Meet and Teams-in-browser are experimental toggles in Settings.

Stop and process. Stop from the window, tray, or palette. Transcription, speaker separation, and structured extraction run locally; the file opens when ready.

Open from anywhere: ⌘⇧K. The palette is a global macOS shortcut; it works even when Minutes is in the background. Start or stop recordings, add notes, search transcripts, or jump to the latest meeting without leaving the keyboard.

If ⌘⇧K collides with your IDE. Settings > Command Palette offers ⌘⇧O and ⌘⇧U as alternates, or disable the global binding entirely ([palette] shortcut_enabled = false in config.toml).

Context-aware entries. The palette shows what is currently possible: Stop recording only appears while recording; sensitive-meeting controls appear only when that mode is active.

Hold the hotkey, speak, release. Dictation sends your words to the clipboard and (optionally) your daily note. Configure the shortcut and destination in Settings > Dictation.

Quick thoughts. The Quick Thought button (or its palette entry) records a short voice memo and files it with your meetings, transcribed and searchable.

iPhone to desktop. Point the folder watcher at your iCloud Voice Memos folder ([watch] in config.toml, or `minutes watch` from the CLI) and recordings from your phone transcribe automatically on your Mac.

Identity. Settings > Identity holds your name, name variants, and email addresses. These feed transcription hints and how you are labeled in your own meetings.

Vocabulary. Names and terms the transcriber mishears can be taught: `minutes vocabulary add "Geert Theys"` from the CLI, or click Remember next to a correctly attributed speaker in any meeting view. Entries bias future transcription toward the right spelling.

Calendar attendees. With Full Calendar access granted, attendee names from the current event feed the same hints automatically.

Recording disclosure. Settings > Privacy holds the consent controls: a reminder mode (default) that shows your disclosure script before meeting recordings, a Require mode that blocks recording until you confirm everyone will be told, and a per-file consent record in every meeting's frontmatter. A disclosure aid, not legal advice.

When something seems off. The Readiness panel (and `minutes health` from the CLI) reports the observed state of models, microphone, calendar access, and the transcription backend, with the exact fix path when something is degraded.