TEAM COMMUNICATION
Stop Reading Reports.
Start Scanning Signals.
CLN gives teams a shared signal language. Risks jump in red, decisions in gold, actions in blue — before you read a word.
- Scan Time
- −70%
- Missed Blockers
- 0
- Onboarding
- 10 min
#
incident-alerts
LIVE
The Wall of Text Problem
Every meeting note, every update, every postmortem is a wall of identical-looking prose. Your brain must read every sentence to classify it. CLN ends that — one glance at the operator column tells you exactly what type of signal each line carries.
Standard Meeting Notes
Hard to Scan
"The sprint went pretty well overall. We shipped the payment module but there is a critical security issue with the session tokens that needs to be fixed before next release. Maria mentioned that the design review is blocked on UX feedback. We're thinking about switching to Stripe. The team is slightly behind due to the infrastructure outage last Tuesday..."
CLN Meeting Notes
Typed
= Sprint #14 Retrospective + Payment module shipped on time ! Session tokens vuln — fix before release ! Design review blocked ##ux-feedback ~ Considering Stripe vs current gateway @ Delay: infra outage last Tuesday → Patch session tokens before next sprint
← click Transform
−70%
scan time — your eye goes straight to ! lines first
Templates Your Team Uses Today
CLN templates for the documents teams produce every week. Copy and adapt — no new tools required.
= Meeting: [Topic] @[Date] @ Attendees: [list] = Context * [background info] = Decisions → [decision made] ~ [open tension / undecided] = Risks ! [blocker or concern] = Next Actions . [owner]: [task] @[deadline] . [owner]: [task] @[deadline]
= Incident: [Name] | Severity: P[1-4] @ Duration: [start] → [end] @ Impact: [users/systems affected] = Timeline @ [HH:MM] [what happened] ! [HH:MM] [critical moment] . [HH:MM] [mitigation action taken] → [HH:MM] Resolved = Root Cause ! [primary cause] ~ [contributing factor] = Follow-up . [owner]: [preventive action] @[deadline]
= Decision: [title] @ Date: [date] | Owner: [name] = Context * [why this decision is needed] + [pro / option A advantage] + [pro / option A advantage] - [con / risk] ~ [tension / tradeoff] → Decision: [what was decided] ? [open question to revisit]
v2.8 template — uses %const for reusable values and **bold** / ~~strike~~ inline formatting.
%const: project = "[Project Name]" %const: owner = "[Owner]" %const: due = "[Date]" = %%project @ owner: %%owner · due: %%due · status: [draft|active|done] = Goal = **[one sentence: what success looks like]** * scope: [what is included] * ~~out of scope: [what is explicitly excluded]~~ = Risks ! [critical blocker or dependency] !! ~ [open tradeoff that needs a decision] = Milestones . %%owner: [milestone 1] @[date] . [assignee]: [milestone 2] @[date] → [final deliverable] = Resources | [tool / repo / doc link] | [budget or headcount] ? [open question to resolve before kickoff]
The Team Operator Set
Teams need 6 operators — the ones that map to how work actually flows. Learn them in 10 minutes, use them for life.
Bang — Risk / Blocker
The most important operator in any team document.
A blocker, a risk, a critical constraint. Always reads first.
Dot — Action Item
A task that needs to happen. Pair with an owner and
a deadline using
@ for a complete action item.Arrow — Decision / Result
A decision made, a conclusion reached, or a next step
committed. The signal that something was resolved.
Tilde — Tension
An unresolved tradeoff, a tension between two valid
options, or a debate that needs to continue. Not a risk — an open question of direction.
At — Metadata
Context, ownership, deadlines, and status. The
scaffolding around content:
@owner: Alex @due: Friday.Equals — Definition / Section
Names a concept, defines a term, or opens a section.
Acts as a scannable header that doubles as a semantic anchor.
New in v2.8 — Useful for Teams
Three additions that make shared CLN documents cleaner and more expressive.
Inline Formatting
Emphasise what matters inside any line — without breaking the operator structure. Bold, italic, strikethrough, highlights.
code, = **critical deadline** — 2026-03-15 !! ! ~~old approach~~ is deprecated . migrate to `new-api` by Friday ☐ ~ ==key tradeoff== — speed vs. safety
Mid-line only —
**bold** *italic* `code` ~~strike~~ ==highlight==Constants & Aliases
Define project name, owner, deadline once at the top — reference everywhere with
%%name. No more copy-paste errors in shared templates.%const: project = "Platform v3" %const: owner = "Alex" %const: due = "2026-04-01" = %%project @ owner: %%owner · due: %%due . %%owner: kick off design sprint ☐
Define once at top · reference as
%%name · change in one placeVisual Sections
Named containers for risks, decisions, or metrics. In rendered docs they become styled blocks — in plain text they stay readable as section headers.
>> ##risks Blockers | accent:#d4654a collapse:true
! API contract not signed !!
! design review pending !!
>> ##decisions Q1 Decisions | accent:#3dba72
→ ship to 10% of users first
→ delay feature X to Q2
Plain text → section header · HTML → styled collapsible block
No New Tools. No New Meetings.
CLN works inside Notion, Confluence, Slack, Google Docs, Linear comments, and every text field your team already uses. It's a convention, not a platform. The only adoption cost is 10 minutes and a one-page cheatsheet.
📝
Any text field
Notion, Confluence, Slack, Docs, .txt — CLN is plain text
⚡
10-minute onboarding
One cheatsheet, one team meeting, done
🔁
Zero migration
Start on your next meeting note — no setup required
Ready to type your team's thinking?
Share the cheatsheet, run a 10-minute onboarding, and write your next meeting note in CLN. No plugins, no platform, no change management — just a shared notation.