Context

Meeting notes record other people. Detecting a call means watching which apps use the microphone, which most people who install Short Leash to serve sites never asked for. Recording laws differ by place, and in some, everyone on a call must agree. A prompt full of consent buttons gets in the way without making the user's duty any clearer.

Decision

Off until turned on. Short Leash doesn't watch for calls until the user turns on meeting notes in Settings. Turning them on explains the notes, runs a system audio test, and sets which apps to watch and how long to keep notes.
Asked on every call. About 2 seconds after one of those apps starts using the microphone (20 at first, then 5; shortened so the question comes in the lobby, while a moment's use of the microphone, such as a browser reading device names, still asks nothing), never while dictating and never taking focus, Short Leash asks "Take notes on this Zoom call?" with Take notes and Not this time. One plain line says to let everyone on the call know. The same choice is in the notification and the menu bar, for keyboard and screen-reader users. If nobody answers, the prompt folds into the menu bar and nothing is recorded.
No auto-start, and no consent-message features. Letting people know is the user's responsibility, and the docs say so plainly.
While recording: a banner with the amber lamp, "Taking notes", the time and Stop notes stays on screen, and the menu bar icon changes.
What is kept.
- Audio stays in memory in short chunks until it is transcribed, and is never written to disk.
- Speakers are labeled by channel (You and Them); no voiceprints are made.
- Transcripts are kept 30 days and summaries a year by default, both configurable, in Short Leash's database (0029) at 0600 in a 0700 folder.
- Settings has Delete all meeting data.
- Nothing is used for training or telemetry.
Labeled. Summaries say they were written by a model on this computer, and exports carry generator, model and ai_generated: true in their front matter.

Consequences

One more kind of captured content is saved on disk, with a retention rule, so invariant 11 changes.
People who never turn on meeting notes never see a prompt, and Short Leash never looks at their microphone use.
Without auto-start, a user who always wants notes clicks Take notes on each call. That keeps every recording a deliberate choice.