Who this is for
Developers who make a real architectural call and want the reasoning captured before the context is gone.
The moment this saves you
Three months later someone asks “why did we use a queue here instead of just calling it directly?” and nobody remembers. The decision’s in the code; the reasoning is in nobody’s head.
See it work
Messy spoken thought in. A clean, structured artifact out.
Okay decision time, I'm going with a background queue for the email sending instead of sending inline in the request. The reason is the email provider is flaky and slow, like sometimes two, three seconds, and I don't want the signup request blocked on that. The tradeoff is now we have a queue to operate and emails can be delayed by a minute or two, which is fine for welcome emails. I considered just doing it inline with a short timeout but then a slow provider tanks our signup conversion. So queue it is. We'll use the existing Redis one, no new infra.
Decision: Send signup emails via a background queue, not inline
- Context: The email provider is flaky and slow (2-3s spikes).
- Decision: Enqueue email sends on the existing Redis queue instead of sending inside the signup request.
- Why: Keeps the signup request fast; a slow provider can't block or tank signup conversion.
- Tradeoffs accepted: We now operate a queue; welcome emails may be delayed 1-2 minutes (acceptable for this use case).
- Alternatives considered: Inline send with a short timeout, rejected because a slow provider still hurts conversion.
- Infra impact: None new, reuses the existing Redis queue.
The workflow
Record a voice note
Hit the hotkey and talk, no formatting, no typing.
Tag it with this context
Contextli shapes your words into the structured output above.
Find it later
Everything's searchable and organised by context.
Pull it into Claude or ChatGPT
Bring your contexts straight into your AI tools with the Contextli MCP.
Your raw recording and transcription stay on your device, so you can always go back to the original.
The prompt behind this context
I'm going to talk through a technical decision I'm making. Turn it into a concise decision record with these labeled lines: a bold Decision title, Context (the situation/problem forcing the choice), Decision (what I'm doing), Why (the reasoning), Tradeoffs accepted (what gets worse and why that's OK), Alternatives considered (each option I weighed and why I rejected it, only the ones I actually mention), and Infra impact (only if I mention infrastructure or dependencies). Keep my technical reasoning intact; remove filler and thinking-aloud. Don't invent alternatives or tradeoffs I didn't raise. Output only the decision record.
Make it your own. This is a starting point. Once it's in Contextli, tweak the instructions so the output comes out exactly how you like it.
Use this context
One tap adds it to your clipboard. Open Contextli and paste to add it.
Next, open Contextli, Contexts, Import, paste.
Make it your own. This is a starting point. Once it's in Contextli, tweak the instructions so the output comes out exactly how you like it.
Your raw recording and transcription stay on your device, so you can always go back to the original.
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