Commitment Tracking

How to track action items, mark them complete, and keep meeting briefs accurate using Armbrain'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 support meeting follow-through. They appear in meeting briefs and L10 agendas. They decay faster than other memory types, so stale action items 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

The extraction pipeline identifies commitments in meeting transcripts. Phrases like "I'll send that by..." or "Can you follow up on..." become commitments with confidence scores.

From Issue Resolution

When you solve a Business OS 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 Armbrain:

"Done: sent the media plan"

Or:

"Mark the media plan commitment as complete"

Armbrain matches by meaning. You don't need exact wording, just enough to identify the commitment.

How Matching Works

Matching uses meaning, not exact text. It allows shorthand, like "the media plan" or "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".

It may be complete already, or the wording may differ too much 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:

A commitment loses relevance twice as fast as a general fact. An uncompleted commitment from 6 months ago scores lower in search results than a recent one. Stale, incomplete action items 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"

Armbrain adjusts how quickly commitment memories fade for this client, keeping them prominent 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, Business OS: 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. Armbrain doesn't track deadlines or send reminders -- keep deadlines in your task app or calendar. Armbrain 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.