Supervisor Meeting Brief Generator

About

Turn 1:1 supervisor meetings into structured working relationships.

Supervisor Meeting Brief Generator is a side-panel Chrome extension that helps graduate students, postdocs, and research-track residents prepare for and capture outcomes from recurring 1:1 meetings with their research supervisors and mentors.

It runs entirely in your browser. No account. No subscription. No AI. No analytics. No server. Your meeting history never leaves your device.

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WHAT IT DOES

Before each meeting, draft a seven-section brief:
• Status update — four bullets, with a live speaking-time meter (target 60–90 seconds at academic 130 wpm)
• Wins this period — a short list of what's working, so the meeting doesn't default to problems-only
• Reading reviewed — papers, datasets, and talks consumed since last meeting, each with a one-line takeaway
• Questions — factual clarifications, kept distinct from decisions (different supervisor response mode)
• Decisions needed — up to 3 questions, each scaffolded with "options considered" and your current leaning
• Blockers — where you're stuck and the specific help you need
• Proposed milestones — what done looks like by next meeting

After each meeting, capture eight things:
• Decisions made — auto-seeded from the brief, you fill in the resolution
• Questions answered — auto-seeded from the brief, you fill in what was clarified
• Action items — a clean table with owner (me / supervisor / both), target date, and status
• References suggested — papers and resources your supervisor pointed you to, with why
• Recognition received — things they explicitly praised or affirmed, useful when reference letters are due
• Feedback to remember — general supervisor comments worth keeping, tagged
• Disagreements accepted — decisions you disagreed with but accepted, with optional revisit dates
• Themes noticed — labels you choose, deduplicated across meetings

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WHY IT WORKS

Most supervisor meetings spend the first 10 minutes rebuilding context. Then they end with vague decisions that dissolve into ambiguity by the next meeting. By month six, you've talked about the same questions four times without resolving them.

The structured pre/post format fixes both ends. Your supervisor walks in already briefed. Decisions get explicit resolutions with revisit dates. Action items propagate forward to the next meeting's brief.

By meeting 4 or 5, the compounding record becomes visible: themes repeat, decisions chain, patterns emerge. You arrive at your viva with a structured representation of your entire research relationship.

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CROSS-MEETING INTELLIGENCE

• "From last meeting" panel — open action items, recent themes, and decisions flagged for revisit all surface above the new brief
• Stale action item detection — anything past its target date moves to the dashboard top (and turns red after 21 days)
• Full-text search — find every mention of a method, paper, or decision in seconds
• Themes auto-collapse — same label across meetings becomes one row with a count

Track multiple supervisors at once — primary supervisor, co-supervisors, committee members, external advisors — each with their own meeting history.

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REMINDERS, EXPORTS, BACKUPS

• Chrome notification 24 hours before each scheduled meeting (configurable 1–168 hours, or disable entirely)
• Export any brief to a printable HTML (use Ctrl/Cmd + P to save as PDF), Markdown, or a pre-filled email (mailto: with optional self-CC)
• Export any capture as Markdown to paste into Notion, Obsidian, or email
• One-click full JSON backup of every meeting, brief, capture, and theme. Import to merge or replace on a new device.

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PRIVACY YOU CAN VERIFY

The extension cannot read any web page you visit. It cannot access your calendar, microphone, camera, or files. It has no content scripts. It declares one host permission — the GradSummit sign-up endpoint — used only for the optional product-updates email below.

Everything you record — meeting dates, supervisor names, brief content, captures, action items, themes — is stored locally in your browser using IndexedDB and chrome.storage.local. No meeting content ever leaves your device through this extension. There is no analytics, no telemetry, no account system, no license server, no subscription.

The only network call the extension can make: if you explicitly tick "Subscribe to product updates" and click Subscribe (in Settings or on the welcome page), the extension POSTs only the email address you typed plus a source tag identifying the extension to the GradSummit sign-up Worker. No brief content, capture content, supervisor names, action items, themes, or notes are ever included. You never need to provide an email to use any feature, and you can unsubscribe from any GradSummit email.

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FREE, FOREVER

This is not a freemium tool. There is no paid tier, no trial flag, no upgrade prompt. Every feature — multi-supervisor tracks, exports, themes, search, reminders — is available to every user.

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WHO THIS IS FOR

• PhD students (years 1–4) meeting with a primary supervisor every 1–4 weeks
• Postdoctoral researchers with PI 1:1s
• Advanced master's students with thesis advisors
• Medical residents in research-track programs with attending mentors
• Anyone in a recurring research-mentor relationship that benefits from structure

It is deliberately not a generic meeting notes app. The prompts, the scaffolding, the cross-meeting surfaces — all are scoped to the research-mentor relationship. For general notes, use Notion or Obsidian.

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KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS & UX

• Click the toolbar icon → popup with next-meeting countdown → "Open side panel"
• Or pin the side panel from Chrome's side-panel menu for one-click access
• Tab navigation: Dashboard / Brief / Capture / History / Supervisors / Settings
• Auto-saves every keystroke (500ms debounced) — close the side panel mid-draft, come back, nothing is lost
• Works completely offline

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WHAT'S NEXT

This is v1.0. Planned future features (free, same extension): Google Calendar / Outlook integration, cross-supervisor pattern surfacing, action item nudges across meetings, import from Notion / Obsidian / plain text.

Built for graduate researchers who'd rather show up to meetings prepared than perform productivity. Free, local-only, no strings.