Tutorial: Build a Meeting Minutes Summary Tool

In this tutorial, you’ll build a tool that automatically summarizes meeting notes, together with Claude Code. No external service connections required, making it ideal for your first tutorial.

Final Result

=== Meeting Summary ===
Date: February 10, 2024 14:00-15:00
Participants: John, Sarah, Mike

=== Decisions ===
1. New feature release on March 1st
2. Sarah is in charge

=== Action Items ===
- John: Create spec document by 2/15
- Mike: Prepare test environment

Time Required

Approximately 30 minutes to 1 hour

Prerequisites

1. Environment setup is complete (see Environment Setup Guide)
2. You can log in to Claude Code in VS Code

Step 1: Create Project Folder

Open Folder in VS Code

1. Launch VS Code
2. From the menu, select “File” → “Open Folder”
3. Create and open a new folder called ~/projects/minutes-summary
   • Create the projects folder first if it doesn’t exist

Open Claude Code

1. Click the Claude icon in VS Code’s left sidebar
2. The chat panel appears

You’re ready to go!

Step 2: Create Sample Meeting Notes

First, let’s have Claude create a test meeting notes file.

Tell Claude

Type the following in the chat panel and press Enter:

Create a sample meeting notes file.
Name it meeting.txt and include:
- Date and participants
- Discussion topics (about 3 items)
- Decisions made
- Tasks for next time (with assignee and deadline)

Make it look like a realistic meeting.

Allow File Creation

When Claude shows “Creating meeting.txt”, click Allow.

Verify

Once the file is created, check its contents:

Show me the contents of meeting.txt

You should also see meeting.txt in VS Code’s Explorer (left sidebar).

Step 3: Create Summary Script

Create a Python script that reads and summarizes the meeting notes.

Tell Claude

Create a Python script that reads meeting.txt and summarizes it.
Name the file summarize.py.

Include in the summary:
- Date and participants
- Decisions (bullet points)
- Action items (with assignee and deadline)

Keep it simple using text processing only, don't use the Claude API.

Allow File Creation

Allow the creation of summarize.py.

Note

We’ll start simple with a script that just analyzes and extracts text structure. You can expand it to AI-powered summarization later.

Step 4: Run It

Tell Claude

Run summarize.py with meeting.txt

Allow Command Execution

When Claude tries to run a command like python summarize.py meeting.txt, click Allow.

Check Results

The summary will be displayed. If it doesn’t work well, don’t worry - ask Claude to fix it:

The [specific part] isn't being extracted correctly. Fix it

Step 5: Improve

Once the basics work, try adding features.

Improvement 1: Change Output Format

Make the summary output in Markdown format

Improvement 2: Support Multiple Files

Make it accept multiple files as arguments.
Example: python summarize.py meeting1.txt meeting2.txt

Improvement 3: Save Results to File

Save the summary results to a file named summary_YYYYMMDD.md

Improvement 4: Add Priority Levels

Add priority levels (High/Medium/Low) to decisions

Step 6: Reflect

What Worked Well

• What instructions were easy to understand
• Good points about Claude’s output

Areas for Improvement

• Instructions that didn’t communicate well
• Behavior that differed from expectations

Taking notes on these will help you at the camp day.

Advanced Challenges (If Time Permits)

Add a Web UI

Add a web interface to this tool.
Make it so you paste meeting notes in a text area and click a button to display the summary.
Use HTML and JavaScript.

Slack Integration

Add a feature to post the summary to Slack

Troubleshooting

”File not found” Error

Check the folder open in VS Code. Is meeting.txt visible in the Explorer on the left sidebar?

If the wrong folder is open:

1. “File” → “Open Folder”
2. Select ~/projects/minutes-summary

Can’t Extract as Expected

Check the meeting notes format and adjust the script:

Analyze the structure of meeting.txt and modify to extract more accurately

Checklist

• Opened Claude Code’s chat panel in VS Code
• Created meeting.txt (sample meeting notes)
• Created summarize.py
• Ran it and summary was displayed
• Added at least one improvement

Next Steps

Once the tutorial is complete, try other tutorials:

• Morning Notification Tool - Google Calendar and Slack integration
• Excel Data Tool - Business data analysis

Or explore the Sample Templates for your own ideas.