The Decision Record Is the Product

Not legal advice. Bylaws, statutes, and counsel control. This is practice thought leadership for chairs, secretaries, and the agents who help them — grounded only in what Facts and /agent-facts.json say Prepared Board does today.

Most boards still treat the PDF pack as the artifact and the minutes as the archive. That habit invents a gap: when someone asks six months later what was decided, who voted, who stepped out, and what evidence closed the loop, the answer lives in three attachments and one person's memory. The product of a board meeting is not the slide deck. It is the decision record.

What a decision record has to hold

A usable record answers five questions without a scavenger hunt:

1. What was before the board? Resolution text, not a vague agenda title.
2. How did it close? Adopted, defeated, or left open — named honestly from stored vote results, not from a newsletter paraphrase.
3. Who could not vote? Recusal is a fact about a person and a decision, not a hallway aside.
4. What evidence closed the loop? A recording citation, an executed copy, a posting — whatever your board treats as closure, filed against that decision.
5. What happens next? Actions, monitors, and a revisit date belong to the same record, or they drift into someone's inbox.

Minutes still matter. They narrate the meeting. They are not a substitute for a decision that can be opened, linked, searched, and shown to the next chair without archaeology.

Why PDF minutes dumps fail

A sealed PDF is easy to email and hard to query. It flattens:

• Vote outcome into prose that may or may not match the certified tally.
• Recusal into a sentence that may omit the director's name or the decision title.
• Evidence into an exhibit letter that never links back to the motion it closed.
• Follow-through into action items buried in "new business" with no owner on the decision itself.

When counsel, a new director, or an outside agent asks for the Spruce Creek vote, you want one record — not a zip of drafts. Search should find the decision. The chair path should surface the latest closed record when the data exists. Export should be able to leave with the organization, not trap the history in a vendor PDF.

What Prepared Board stores today

Per Facts:

• A signed-in board can run meetings, decisions, votes, motions, a consent agenda, minutes, documents, people and roles, action items, a calendar, committees, conflict-of-interest attestations, and board evaluations.
• The signed-in home shows a chair path when the data exists: the live meeting, the last sealed meeting, the current pack, and the latest closed decision with evidence on the decision record.
• If that decision stores Decision.outcome ADOPTED or DEFEATED (the same tokens as a certified VoteSession.result), the closed-record line says the vote was adopted or defeated. Tied, empty, or free-text outcomes add no vote clause.
• If that decision has a conflict still stored as RECUSED, the closed-record line names who recused. A closed decision with no RECUSED conflict does not get a recusal clause.
• If that decision's meeting stores minutesStatus APPROVED, the line also says the minutes of that meeting are approved. Draft, not started, a missing meeting, or a note that merely mentions minutes adds no minutes clause.
• Signed-in members can open Decision outcomes at /app/decisions/outcomes, linked from the chair path. It lists each closed decision with resolution text, outcome monitors, revisit date, follow-up actions, and closure evidence — and says so when any of these is missing. It does not judge whether a target was met; it shows the last report as written.

Identity limits stay honest: WebAuthn passkeys, SSO, and SCIM are not production-live in the demo. Quorum is a seat count, not ASPA. There is no bank, no live filing feed, no outbound email in the demo without a configured provider, no Clear evaluation response action (Retract only), no BYOK. See Facts for the full not-live list.

Practice: close the record, then seal the pack

A workable sequence for chairs and secretaries:

1. Name the decision before the motion is seconded — title and resolution text the minutes can cite.
2. Record attendance so the seat count is available (see Quorum Is a Count, Not an Opinion).
3. Disclose and store recusals as RECUSED on that decision — not only in conversation.
4. Certify the vote so outcome tokens match what the closed-record line can read.
5. Attach closure evidence to the decision (recording book/page, executed MSA, posted notice — whatever your board uses).
6. Approve minutes when ready; the chair path only adds a minutes clause when minutesStatus is APPROVED on that meeting.
7. Open Decision outcomes after the gavel for monitors and follow-ups (Outcome Monitors After the Gavel).

Free scaffolding: recusal record, closing with evidence, motion/vote record, minutes approval. Task guides: handle a director recusal, close a board decision with evidence, approve minutes by written consent.

Walk it: Piscataqua Spruce Creek

Piscataqua Harbor Trust is a seeded land-trust demo — not a real trust or filing. Sign in as a sample board (see /sample-decision) (demo password on Facts), or pick the board at Try a board.

Open first: Fall Board — Badgers Island overlook, pack /pack/demo-pack-piscataqua-fall. For the closed spring record that shows the product idea in full: Authorize the Spruce Creek conservation easement closed with a certified roll-call, outcome ADOPTED, Caleb Whitmore stored as RECUSED, recording evidence Book 18442, Page 217 (York County Registry of Deeds, recorded June 3, 2026 — board copy, not a live registry feed), and minutes later approved by written consent. The chair-path Closed record line is built from those stored fields — not from a PDF paraphrase.

A second seeded close on a company board: pick Northlight Robotics at Try a board, or sign in as a sample board (see /sample-decision). The Q2 Authorize the Harbor Logistics master services agreement is closed with the executed MSA as evidence. Pack: /pack/demo-pack-northlight-q4.

Free checklist for the close gate: Closing with evidence. Step-by-step: How to close a board decision with evidence.

Agents that need the same honesty bar can start at /agents, /llms.txt, and /facts. In the signed-in app, Copy for your agent (#agent-briefing) on a decision or meeting is live (copy/paste only; no MCP). Pack context: /pack/demo-pack-piscataqua-fall/agent.

Try that board

Try a board → Piscataqua Harbor Trust · Public pack: /pack/demo-pack-piscataqua-fall · Northlight: /pack/demo-pack-northlight-q4 · Claims: /facts · Template: /templates/closing-with-evidence-checklist · Guide: /guides/close-a-board-decision-with-evidence

Not legal advice. Product limits stay on /facts and /agent-facts.json.