Commitment Tracking

How to track action items, mark them complete, and keep meeting briefs accurate using Coppermind's commitment lifecycle.

What Is a Commitment?#

A commitment is a memory with type commitment -- an action item someone (you, a client stakeholder, a team member) agreed to do. Commitments are the backbone of meeting follow-through. They appear prominently in meeting briefs and L10 agendas, and they decay faster than other memory types so stale action items naturally lose relevance.

Storing Commitments#

During Conversation#

The most natural way to create a commitment is to mention it in conversation:

"Remember: I need to send the revised media plan to Sarah by Friday"

Or be explicit about the type:

"Store a commitment: Ben will deliver the Q2 budget proposal by March 28"

During Transcript Ingestion#

When you ingest a meeting transcript, the extraction pipeline automatically identifies commitments. Phrases like "I'll send that by..." or "Can you follow up on..." are classified as commitments with appropriate confidence scores.

From Issue Resolution#

When you solve an EOS issue with a to-do:

"Solve the website performance issue -- resolution: switching to CDN.
To-do: Ben to configure CDN by end of sprint"

Adding a to-do when you resolve an issue creates a tracked commitment linked to that issue.

Viewing Open Commitments#

Commitments surface automatically in several places:

Meeting Briefs#

Every meeting brief includes an "Action Items" section listing open commitments:

## Action Items
- [ ] Send revised media plan to Sarah by Friday
- [ ] Review Q2 budget proposal
- [x] Deliver brand guidelines update (completed March 22)

Open commitments show as unchecked (- [ ]). Completed commitments show as checked (- [x]), so you can see what was resolved since the last meeting.

L10 Meeting Prep#

The L10 "To-Do List" section aggregates all open commitments:

To-Do List (5 min)
  Review open to-dos and commitments.
  - Send revised media plan to Sarah by Friday (3 days old)
  - Review Q2 budget proposal (5 days old)
  - Follow up with design team on mockups (8 days old)

Cross-Client Summary#

The daily cross-client summary shows open commitment counts per client:

Acme Corp: 3 open commitments, 2 recent memories
BigCorp:   1 open commitment, 0 recent memories

This helps you spot which clients have the most outstanding action items.

Weekly Summary#

The weekly rollup includes open commitment counts alongside meeting stats and memory breakdowns.

Marking Commitments Done#

When you complete an action item, tell Coppermind:

"Done: sent the media plan"

Or:

"Mark the media plan commitment as complete"

Coppermind matches it by meaning -- you don't need the exact wording, just enough to identify which commitment you mean.

How Matching Works#

Matching is by meaning, not exact text -- and it's deliberately forgiving, because people describe their commitments in shorthand ("the media plan," "that audit").

Single match -- marked done immediately:

"Done: media plan"

Marked complete: "Send revised media plan to Sarah by Friday"

Multiple matches -- asks you to pick:

"Done: budget"

Found 2 open commitments matching "budget":
  1. Review Q2 budget proposal (similarity: 0.82)
  2. Send budget breakdown to finance (similarity: 0.71)

Use pick= to select one.

Respond with:

"Pick 1"

No matches -- nothing found:

"Done: quarterly report"

No open commitments matching "quarterly report".

This might mean it was already completed, or the wording is too different from the stored commitment.

What Happens After Completion#

Completed commitments aren't deleted or hidden -- they stay on the record as done. This means:

• They still appear in meeting briefs as checked-off items
• They no longer count toward your "open commitments" total
• They provide historical context about what was accomplished

Commitment Decay#

Commitments have the fastest decay rate of any memory type:

This means a commitment loses relevance twice as fast as a general fact. A 6-month-old uncompleted commitment scores much lower in search results than a recent one. This is intentional -- stale action items that were never completed are usually no longer relevant.

If you have a client where commitments stay relevant longer (for example, quarterly deliverables instead of weekly tasks), you can adjust the decay rate:

"Configure Acme's memory settings: make commitments decay slower"

Coppermind adjusts how quickly commitment memories fade for this client, so they stay prominent for as long as you need.

Practical Workflow#

Before a Meeting#

1. Run meeting prep -- review the "Action Items" section
2. Note which commitments are still open and who owns them
3. Prepare to discuss any that are overdue

After a Meeting#

1. Capture new commitments from the conversation
2. Mark completed items as done
3. The next meeting brief will reflect the updated state

Weekly Review#

1. Ask for your weekly summary to see open commitments across all clients
2. Identify which clients have the most outstanding items
3. Mark completed items and flag blocked ones

Example Session#

> switch to Acme

Switched to Acme Corp. 47 memories, last meeting Mar 20, brand voice: set, EOS: Q2 active.

> what are the open action items?

[searches for commitments, shows open items]

> done: sent the media plan

Marked complete: "Send revised media plan to Sarah by Friday"

> done: budget proposal

Marked complete: "Review Q2 budget proposal"

> remember: Sarah asked us to prepare case studies for the board meeting by April 5

Stored commitment: "Prepare case studies for board meeting by April 5"

Key Details#

• Commitments are just memories. They're stored and searched like everything else; marking one "done" simply flips it to completed.
• No due-date tracking. Coppermind doesn't track deadlines or send reminders -- keep deadlines in your task app or calendar. Coppermind holds the what and the why; your task app holds the when.
• Completed commitments can't be un-completed. If you mark something done by mistake, just store it again as a new commitment.
• Marking done needs search to be available. In the rare moment search is down, the commitment still exists -- you just can't mark it complete until it recovers.
• Sensitive commitments (marked confidential or owner-only) are kept out of client-safe outputs and restricted teammate views.