Minutes: the Free, Open-Source Meeting Recorder That Claude Can Search
An open-source Otter and Granola alternative that records and transcribes your meetings on your own computer, saves each one as a Markdown file you own, and lets Claude answer what got decided. How to set it up, what to ask, and the catch
Minutes is a free, open-source conversation memory app by Mat Silverstein. It records and transcribes meetings, calls, voice memos and dictation on your device, then lets Claude Code (or Codex, Cursor, any MCP client) search the history you choose to share. It is MIT licensed and past 1,500 stars on GitHub.
What it does (from the README)
- Capture, transcription and storage run locally. Audio stays on your machine.
- Every meeting is a plain Markdown file in ~/meetings/ with YAML at the top: title, date, duration, action items, decisions.
- An MCP server (34 tools) lets Claude search every meeting at once and answer questions that span several calls.
- A Claude Code plugin with 23 skills: prep before a call, capture, live help, debrief after, and memory workflows.
- A CLI with 58 commands, a desktop app (menu bar capture, dictation, Recall), and imports from Granola.
- No paid tier for anything in the repo, and the author says it stays MIT.
Free, for your email
Get the full setup steps + the copy-paste setup prompt
The rest of this guide (3 more sections, 1 copy-paste prompt) opens right here. The setup prompt, one paste into Claude that sets it all up, comes by email only. Use your real address.
Unlocks: Set it up · The catch · Sources
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