For the AI: How to Generate a Daily Briefing

When a user asks for a briefing, follow these steps.

Step 0: Pre-Flight Check

Before generating the briefing, confirm:

• Will respond in ONE message
• Will use the exact format from the CRITICAL section
• Will include the Focus statement at the end

Step 1: Gather Data Sources

Check for these files in order:

1. todo.md (to-do list from ai-meeting-notes)
2. meeting-notes/ folder (recent meeting notes)
3. MEMORY.md (if using ai-persona-os)
4. memory/[today].md (session notes)
5. Calendar integration (if available)

If no data sources exist:

No existing to-do list or meeting notes found.

Would you like me to:
• Create a to-do list? (just tell me your tasks)
• Process some meeting notes? (paste them here)
• Set up a simple priority list for today?

Step 2: Extract Overdue Items

From todo.md, find items in the "⚠️ Overdue" section.

Display format:

⚠️ OVERDUE ([X] items)
• [Task] — was due [date]
• [Task] — was due [date]

Rules:

• Show max 5 items (if more: "+ [X] more overdue")
• Most urgent first
• Include original due date
• If none: Skip this section entirely

Step 3: Extract Today's Priorities

Combine from multiple sources:

1. From todo.md:

   • "📅 Due Today" section
   • "📆 This Week" items due today

2. From meeting-notes/:

   • Action items assigned to user with today's deadline
   • Follow-ups due today

3. From calendar:

   • Important meetings to prep for
   • Deadlines

Display format:

📅 TODAY'S PRIORITIES
1. [ ] [Task] — [deadline/context]
2. [ ] [Task] — [deadline/context]
3. [ ] [Task] — [deadline/context]

Rules:

• Show max 5 items
• Numbered for easy reference
• Include checkbox format
• Prioritize by: urgency → importance → order mentioned

Step 4: Calendar Overview

If calendar data is available:

Display format:

📆 CALENDAR
• [Time] — [Event]
• [Time] — [Event]
• [Time] — [Event]

Rules:

• Chronological order
• Show all events (don't truncate)
• Include time and event name
• If no calendar: Skip this section or note "No calendar connected"

Step 5: Context from Recent Meetings

Scan meeting-notes/ folder for files from last 3-7 days.

Extract:

• Key decisions made
• Important context to remember
• Upcoming deadlines mentioned
• People/relationships to follow up with

Display format:

💡 CONTEXT (from recent meetings)
• [Key insight 1]
• [Key insight 2]
• [Key insight 3]

Rules:

• Max 5 context items
• Only include relevant/actionable context
• Reference the meeting if helpful: "(from client-call)"
• If no recent meetings: Skip this section

Step 6: Generate Focus Statement

Based on everything gathered, determine the ONE most important thing.

Criteria for choosing focus:

1. Overdue items with consequences
2. High-stakes meetings today
3. Deadlines that can't slip
4. Dependencies blocking others

Display format:

🎯 FOCUS FOR TODAY
[One clear sentence about the single most important thing]

Examples:

• "Get the Acme proposal sent — it's 2 days overdue and they're waiting."
• "Prep for the investor call at 2pm — everything else can wait."
• "Clear the 3 overdue tasks before starting anything new."
• "No fires today — use this for deep work on the Q2 plan."

Step 7: Assemble the Briefing

Put it all together in the exact format:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
☀️ DAILY BRIEFING — [Day], [Month] [Date], [Year]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Overdue section — if any]

[Today's Priorities section]

[Calendar section — if available]

[Context section — if any]

[Focus statement — always]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Step 8: Handle Variations

"What's overdue?"

⚠️ OVERDUE ITEMS

1. [Task] — was due [date]
2. [Task] — was due [date]

[If none: "Nothing overdue! You're caught up."]

"What's on my calendar?"

📆 TODAY'S CALENDAR — [Date]

• [Time] — [Event]
• [Time] — [Event]

[Tomorrow preview if requested]

"Weekly preview" / "What's this week look like?"

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📅 WEEKLY PREVIEW — Week of [Date]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

MONDAY
• [Tasks/events]

TUESDAY
• [Tasks/events]

[etc.]

⚠️ WATCH OUT FOR
• [Key deadline or conflict]
• [Important meeting]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Edge Cases

No data sources found:

• Don't show empty briefing
• Offer to help set up todo list or process notes

First time user:

• Explain where data comes from
• Offer to create initial setup

Weekend briefing:

• Lighter format
• Focus on upcoming week prep
• Skip "today's priorities" if nothing scheduled

End of day request:

• Shift to "what's left today" + "tomorrow preview"
• Acknowledge time of day

Tone

• Crisp and actionable — No fluff
• Honest about priorities — Don't sugarcoat overdue items
• Encouraging but real — "Busy day, but manageable"
• Proactive — Surface things before they're problems