Circleback
Meeting transcription, summaries, action items, and workflow automations
The visible meeting notes loop is buildable, but a credible replacement needs more than the first screen. Circleback earns its keep through capture, integrations, reliability, so expect a weekend or multi-day build and a narrower personal scope.
Build verification: not recorded. How we judge buildability
What you give up
- cross-call team analytics
- meeting-bot auto-join
- live multi-speaker accuracy
- calendar and CRM integrations
Why people still pay
Circleback: Customers pay for automatic capture, dependable speaker handling, search across calls, and notes arriving without manual file wrangling.
Your build guide
The stack, security requirements, and agent rules for a focused replacement.
Before you start
- Runtime and tools: Python, FastAPI, SQLite, FFmpeg and a local faster-whisper worker with a React transcript editor.
- Before starting: An installed speech model, adequate local disk space and a recording made with participant permission; any optional hosted model needs a separately disclosed API key.
Use these project rules and optional skill references alongside the prompt. Review each skill before adding it to your agent; the AGENTS.md export includes the same guidance.
Project rule — domain: Store Meeting, Segment, Decision, ProposedTask and AcceptedTask; acceptance links one task to its source quote and never mutates a previously accepted task on summary regeneration.
Project rule — scope and recovery: Start with a manual task export instead of automatic CRM writes. Names, deadlines and speaker identities require correction controls; remove any claimed universal transcription accuracy.
Project rule — acceptance: Re-run notes after correcting a deadline; highlight the changed suggestion, retain the accepted task until reviewed and never create a duplicate task silently.
Project rule — delivery: document real setup commands and permissions; do not claim a build, accuracy level, performance result or security certification that has not been demonstrated.
Recommended skill: modern-python — structure the Python worker or explicitly optional read-only utility with pinned dependencies, typed boundaries and clear failure handling. Follow the maintainer's installation instructions and match its requirements to the chosen runtime.
Recommended skill: web-design-guidelines — review keyboard access, focus, validation, error recovery and the readable work/review interface or HTML report. Follow the maintainer's installation instructions and match its requirements to the chosen runtime.
Implementation plan
Phase 1
Pin the working slice and create its example input: Convert an imported meeting into structured decisions and follow-up tasks, then let the reviewer accept, amend or discard each suggested task. Confirm setup: An installed speech model, adequate local disk space and a recording made with participant permission; any optional hosted model needs a separately disclosed API key.
Phase 2
Implement persistence and write-time invariants before decorating the UI: Store Meeting, Segment, Decision, ProposedTask and AcceptedTask; acceptance links one task to its source quote and never mutates a previously accepted task on summary regeneration.
Phase 3
Connect the working view to real saved state. Keep original timing alongside corrected text. Speech recognition does not itself establish speaker identity; permit manual speaker labels. Show undecodable audio and uncertain passages without inventing words.
Phase 4
Expose the app-specific limits and recovery path in context: Start with a manual task export instead of automatic CRM writes. Names, deadlines and speaker identities require correction controls; remove any claimed universal transcription accuracy.
Phase 5
Walk through this concrete acceptance case and preserve its exported evidence: Re-run notes after correcting a deadline; highlight the changed suggestion, retain the accepted task until reviewed and never create a duplicate task silently. Finish the README and backup/restore instructions; report unfinished capabilities explicitly.
Build the following focused alternative to Circleback. This is a deliberately limited personal or small-team substitute, not parity with the paid service. WORKING SLICE Convert an imported meeting into structured decisions and follow-up tasks, then let the reviewer accept, amend or discard each suggested task. SETUP AND ARCHITECTURE Use Python, FastAPI, SQLite, FFmpeg and a local faster-whisper worker with a React transcript editor. Prerequisites: An installed speech model, adequate local disk space and a recording made with participant permission; any optional hosted model needs a separately disclosed API key. Before integrating anything, record actual versions and permissions, plus model files or provider limits only where used, in the README; make unavailable dependencies visible rather than simulating success. DOMAIN MODEL AND INVARIANTS Store Meeting, Segment, Decision, ProposedTask and AcceptedTask; acceptance links one task to its source quote and never mutates a previously accepted task on summary regeneration. IMPLEMENTATION CONTRACT Keep original timing alongside corrected text. Speech recognition does not itself establish speaker identity; permit manual speaker labels. Show undecodable audio and uncertain passages without inventing words. Provide an input/setup view, the main work view, and a review/export view appropriate to this workflow. Preserve the last saved state if a job or save fails. Include empty, loading, permission-denied, partial and retryable-error states. Log identifiers and error categories without secret values or unnecessary private content. APP-SPECIFIC BOUNDARY AND RECOVERY Start with a manual task export instead of automatic CRM writes. Names, deadlines and speaker identities require correction controls; remove any claimed universal transcription accuracy. ACCEPTANCE SCENARIO Re-run notes after correcting a deadline; highlight the changed suggestion, retain the accepted task until reviewed and never create a duplicate task silently. Also reopen the app after an interrupted operation, confirm the saved record/export remains inspectable, and document the recovery action. These are implementation acceptance requirements, not a claim that this guide has been tested. DELIVERY Deliver a runnable repository with migrations or project-format versioning, a non-sensitive example, environment/permission setup, the exact manual acceptance steps, and a backup/export-and-restore walkthrough. Implement the working slice before optional integrations; list any deferred paid-product capabilities honestly. Do not add capabilities outside the working slice just to resemble the original product. PROJECT RULES FOR AGENTS.md Keep the domain invariants above executable at the write boundary. Propose scope changes before adding providers or permissions. Never fabricate source evidence, publish results, identity matches or successful delivery. Preserve user originals and require an explicit confirmation for destructive changes or external publication.
$ open in your agent (prompt prefilled, you press enter), copy the prompt or copy or download AGENTS.md
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Circleback pricing
| plan | monthly | annual (per mo) | what you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| individual | — | $20.83/user | Unlimited meetings, imports, and automations; 100+ languages.Annual equivalent verified; the public rendered page offers monthly billing but did not expose its numeric monthly price. |
| team | — | $25/user | Unlimited meetings, imports, and automations, plus team sharing, centralized billing, settings, and retention controls.Annual equivalent verified; the public rendered page offers monthly billing but did not expose its numeric monthly price. |
| enterprise | — | — | Custom security, administration, and support package; no public numeric limits or price.Contact sales. |
free tierno free tier
billingmonthly + annual; only annual numeric prices were publicly verifiable; free trial offered with no public duration
hidden costsMonthly prices are shown only in the interactive purchase flow and were not exposed in the public rendered pricing page.
pricing sources checked 2026-08-14 · pricing source ↗
Questions about Circleback
Can you build your own Circleback with AI?
Partly. The visible meeting notes loop is buildable, but a credible replacement needs more than the first screen. Circleback earns its keep through capture, integrations, reliability, so expect a weekend or multi-day build and a narrower personal scope.
What does the Circleback build prompt cover?
The prompt starts with this scope: Convert an imported meeting into structured decisions and follow-up tasks, then let the reviewer accept, amend or discard each suggested task. Full-product capabilities excluded from the comparison include: cross-call team analytics; meeting-bot auto-join; live multi-speaker accuracy. Follow the implementation plan and its prerequisites before expanding the build.
How do I use the prompt, AGENTS.md and agent skills?
Start with the Circleback prerequisites and stack, then copy the prompt into your coding agent. Save the project rules as AGENTS.md in the project root. Linked skills are optional packages or source instructions for specific tasks; review their current contents and install only those matching the chosen stack. A skill does not supply API credentials or verify the finished app.
How long will this Circleback project take?
The catalogue estimate is multi-day for the limited scope. Setup, integration approvals, debugging, deployment and ongoing maintenance can add time. This is an estimate, not a delivery guarantee.
What would I give up by replacing Circleback?
cross-call team analytics; meeting-bot auto-join; live multi-speaker accuracy; calendar and CRM integrations. Circleback: Customers pay for automatic capture, dependable speaker handling, search across calls, and notes arriving without manual file wrangling.
What can I use instead of building Circleback?
The prior-art section lists whisper.cpp as starting points. Review their current scope, license and maintenance before adopting one.