Minutes

Conversation memory for humans and agents. Capture once, keep the transcript, decisions, and context useful everywhere.

Desktop app • Created by Mat Silverstein • Open-source conversation memory for AI assistants

Capture

Meetings, memos, and thoughts become structured markdown instead of disappearing into app state.

Timeline, transcript, action items, and context stay queryable across desktop, CLI, and MCP surfaces.

Local First

Audio capture and storage stay on your machine unless you explicitly opt into external model services.

Agent Native

Built to work well with Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cowork, Codex, and other tool-calling assistants.

Command-line tool

Minutes is open source, markdown-backed, and designed so the artifact remains valuable even outside this app. Power-user tray actions copy the latest summary or transcript and try to paste it into your previous app when macOS automation allows it.

Built as a local-first desktop app with a tray workflow, CLI, and MCP surfaces that all point at the same markdown-backed record of your conversations.

Settings

IDENTITY

Your name

Used to attribute meeting content to you ("Mat said…"). Leave blank if you'd rather stay anonymous.

Your email addresses

Comma-separated. Every address you send from, so calendar attendees arriving under different emails fold onto the same person.

Name variants

Comma-separated. Alternate forms — nicknames, formal spellings — so everything folds onto your canonical name.

GENERAL

Show completion alerts

Play sound cues for start, stop, and complete

Open Minutes at login

Quick Thought shortcut

or Caps Lock / fn

Hold to record a quick thought, or tap to lock and tap again to stop.

DICTATION

Dictation shortcut

or Caps Lock / fn

Hold to dictate, or tap to lock and tap again to stop.

Dictation whisper model

Smaller models = faster dictation. "base" is recommended.

Log dictations to daily note

Silence timeout

End dictation session after this much silence (after first speech).

Recent dictations

LIVE TRANSCRIPT

Backend

Standalone live transcript currently inherits your main transcription engine.

Keyboard shortcut

Toggle live transcript on/off from any app.

COMMAND PALETTE

Keyboard shortcut

Open the Minutes command palette from any app.

TRANSCRIPTION

Engine

Whisper and Parakeet control batch, recording, and recording-sidecar transcription. Standalone live transcript has its own backend setting above.

Whisper model

Parakeet backend

Checking Parakeet backend…

Runs locally with a Parakeet backend binary plus model assets. See minutes setup --parakeet.

Transcription language

Leave this on Auto-detect for mixed or unknown audio. Pick a language only when Whisper is consistently guessing wrong.

Speaker diarization (identify who said what)

AUTO-SUMMARIZATION

Automatic pipeline summarization

By default, Claude summarizes your meetings conversationally via MCP — no configuration needed. Turn this on only if you want summaries generated automatically in the recording pipeline.

Agent command

Ollama URL

Base URL for your local Ollama server.

Ollama model

Name of a model you've pulled in Ollama (e.g. llama3.2, qwen2.5, gemma3).

Connection type

Pick the closest match. Minutes will fill the technical fields below.

Connection URL

Paste the base URL ending in /v1, /openai, or /compat. Minutes adds /chat/completions automatically.

Model

Use the model name your server or gateway expects.

API key

Paste a key once. Minutes stores it securely.

Advanced: env var fallback

Optional. Use this only if you prefer launching Minutes with a shell-managed secret.

PIPELINE HOOKS

Post-record command

Shell command run after each recording is processed. The transcript file path is appended as the final argument. Leave blank to disable.

CALL DETECTION

Detect calls automatically

Polling interval

How often to check for active calls (seconds).

Cooldown

Minutes to wait before re-triggering call detection.

Google Meet detection (experimental)

Opt-in browser integration for Meet in Chrome/Safari. Uses stronger meeting-URL matching, may require macOS browser automation permission, and backs off after failures instead of probing every second.

Microsoft Teams (web) detection (experimental)

Opt-in browser integration for Teams meetings in Arc, Chrome, and Safari. Matches Teams meeting URLs only (chat/calendar pages are ignored). Requires macOS browser automation permission on first use, and backs off after failures instead of probing every second.

Stop when call ends

When the detected call app exits mid-recording, show a countdown prompt with Stop now and Keep recording. Only applies to recordings started from the call-detection banner.

Auto-stop countdown

Seconds to wait before stopping when the call ends.

PRIVACY

Hide windows from screen sharing

Meeting-adjacent desktop context

Off. App/window context stays disabled until you turn it on.

Focused window titles

Uses the best available platform APIs for focused-window titles. On macOS, missing Accessibility permission limits title capture.

Browser title context

Opt-in browser tab and window titles only. URLs and domains are not collected in v1.

Allowed apps

Optional comma-separated allowlist. Leave empty to allow all apps except denied ones.

Denied apps

Comma-separated app or bundle-id fragments to suppress from desktop context capture.

Capture screen context during recordings

Screenshots sent to vision LLM for context. Requires Screen Recording permission.

Screenshot interval

VAULT SYNC

Connect an Obsidian or Logseq vault

Checking...

RECALL AGENT

AI agent for the Recall panel

Auto-approve all tool calls

Extra launch flags

Additional CLI arguments passed when starting the agent

STORAGE

DIAGNOSTICS

System readiness and audio permission checks

Retry failed captures and unprocessed audio files

ADVANCED

Edit config.toml

Tuning knobs not shown in this panel — silence thresholds, diarization parameters, watcher paths, knowledge-base integration, and more — live in your config file.

Configuration reference

Full list of every config key, its default, and what it does.

Config file:

Set up CLI

What's New