Overview

Single-Click Summaries are quick-access actions prominently displayed when you first open the Pieces Desktop App. These summaries generate instant, contextual insights from your workflow captured by the Long-Term Memory (LTM-2.7) Engine.

Each summary type adapts dynamically to your workflow, meaning the same summary type generates different results based on your current activities, captured memories, and work patterns. This makes Single-Click Summaries powerful tools for understanding your productivity, tracking progress, and identifying patterns in your work.

Generating Summaries

Generating a single-click summary lets you quickly extract insights from your workflow without writing prompts. Click any summary card on the homepage and after a few minutes, you'll see your summary in the Pieces Timeline.

You can queue multiple unique summaries at once, but wait for the current one to finish before starting another of the same type.

Viewing Queued Summaries

Track your summaries as they generate in the Pieces Timeline. When you generate a summary, it appears under the current day in Pieces Timeline with a "Queued" status. Summaries are organized by day, and you can expand or collapse each day to view its contents.

Click `Show Timeline` in the top left of the main view to expand Pieces Timeline if it's not already open. The current day section appears at the top of Pieces Timeline, below the `Filter Timeline` search bar. It shows the date (e.g., "Today, Jan 21st") with a count of items. Click on the current day section to expand it and view all summaries, timeline activities, and other events for that day. Queued summaries appear under the current day with a "Queued" status indicator. You can see which summaries are waiting to be processed and their position in the queue (e.g., "Queued (#3)", "Queued (#2)", "Next in queue"). Actively generating summaries display a loading indicator, while queued summaries show their position in the queue.

Pieces Timeline showing current day expanded with queued summaries visible, including "What's Top of Mind" showing "Queued (#3)", "Day Recap" showing "Queued (#2)", and "AI Habits" showing "Next in queue"

Canceling a Summary

Stop any running summary generation from the Pieces Timeline. Locate the summary you want to cancel under the current day in Pieces Timeline and click the red cancel button to stop it.

Click `Show Timeline` in the top left to expand the Pieces Timeline. Click on the current day section to expand it and view all summaries for that day. Locate the summary you want to cancel under the current day. It will show a "Queued" status indicator. Click the red cancel button on the right side of the summary item (hovering shows `Stop Generating`). This stops the generation process and removes it from your queue.

Completing and Viewing Summaries

Access your completed summaries and view the full results. When a summary finishes generating, it remains in the day section where it was queued. Click it to view detailed insights, related activities, and links to relevant documents or commits from your workflow.

When a summary finishes generating, it remains in the day section where it was queued. The summary will no longer show a "Queued" status. Click the completed summary in your Pieces Timeline to view the full results. Summaries include detailed insights, related activities, and links to relevant documents or commits from your workflow. Scroll through the expanded day section to view all summaries, both queued and completed, organized chronologically.

Completed summary view showing full results with insights, related activities, and links to relevant documents

Scheduling Summaries

Schedule single-click summaries to run automatically at a time you choose. As long as Pieces is open and running on your computer, the summary will generate at the scheduled time and appear in your Pieces Timeline.

Scheduling is available for all built-in summary types except *Custom Summary*. Hover over a summary card on the homepage and click `Schedule this summary`, or use the schedule option on the summary card. The schedule modal opens for that summary type. Select **Daily** to run every day, or **Weekly** to run on specific days of the week. For weekly schedules, select one or more days (e.g., Mo, Tu, We, Th, Fr for weekdays). Pick a time from the preset options (6 AM, 8 AM, 9 AM, 12 PM, 5 PM, 9 PM) or choose **Custom** to set a different time. Review the summary message (e.g., "Runs weekdays at 08:00 AM") and click `Schedule` to save. The summary will run automatically at the set time whenever Pieces is open and running. Scheduled summaries only run when Pieces is open and running on your computer. If Pieces is closed at the scheduled time, the summary will not generate.

Schedule modal showing repeat frequency (Daily/Weekly), day selection, time options, and schedule confirmation message

Using Summary Types

Learn how to use specific summary types and customize them for your workflow.

Summary Types

Single-Click Summaries include preset summary types designed for common workflow needs. Each type generates insights tailored to your specific work patterns and captured activities.

Summary Type Description
Today's Headlines Breaking news and headlines personalized to your professional world, based on your recent work context.
What's Top of Mind Identifies recurring topics and priorities from your recent workflow, ranked by importance.
Morning Brief Provides everything you need to kickstart your day, compiled from your recent activities.
Standup Update Generates a three-part update: what you did, what's next, and blockers—perfect for team standups.
Day Recap Compiles an end-of-day summary of your accomplishments, completed tasks, and overall activity.
Time Breakdown Organizes your daily work into projects with in-depth time breakdowns, showing what you worked on per project throughout the day.
Week Recap Provides a comprehensive overview of your week at a glance, including key activities and patterns.
Custom Summary Generate summaries based on specific time ranges and topics you choose.
AI Habits Analyzes how you interact with AI tools, showing patterns in questions asked and topics queried.
Professional Persona Provides work style analysis and professional summary based on your workflow patterns.
Collaboration Patterns Identifies who you work with and how, revealing collaboration dynamics in your workflow.
Discover Access additional summary options and request new summary types through a popup interface.

Today's Headlines

Takes the context of what you've been working on recently and uses Perplexity to find news articles and headlines related to your work. It summarizes them and delivers a bite-sized overview of what's going on in your industry—so you stay informed without leaving your workflow.

What's Top of Mind

Identifies recurring topics and priorities from your recent workflow, ranked by importance. This summary helps you understand what's been occupying your attention and what matters most in your current work.

Standup Update

Generates a three-part update: what you did, what's next, and blockers—perfect for team standups. Use this summary to quickly prepare for team meetings and share your progress.

Day Recap

Compiles an end-of-day summary of your accomplishments, completed tasks, and overall activity. Review your day's work and track your productivity patterns.

Time Breakdown

Organizes your work into projects with in-depth time breakdowns, showing what you worked on per project. Time Breakdown reconstructs your billable hours from captured workstream context—categorizing activity by project and providing structured time blocks you can review, refine, and submit.

Tap Discover More from your Home Dashboard to find Time Breakdown. Choose a preset time range that matches your reporting needs:

  • Last 24 Hours — Daily timesheet submissions
  • Last 2 Days — Catch up on a missed day
  • Last Week — Weekly billing cycles or sprint reviews
  • Last 2 Weeks — Bi-weekly invoicing
  • Last 30 Days — Monthly reviews or end-of-month billing
Time ranges longer than 24 hours can take longer to generate—sometimes 15 minutes or more—depending on the amount of data to process.

Once generated, you can view, edit, copy, export, or use the Time Breakdown as context for a Pieces Copilot chat to ask follow-up questions.

Week Recap

Provides a comprehensive overview of your week at a glance, including key activities and patterns. Get a high-level view of your weekly productivity and accomplishments.

Morning Brief

Provides everything you need to kickstart your day, compiled from your recent activities. Start your day informed about what you've been working on and what's coming up.

Professional Persona

Provides work style analysis and professional summary based on your workflow patterns. Understand your professional habits, strengths, and work patterns.

Collaboration Patterns

Identifies who you work with and how, revealing collaboration dynamics in your workflow. Discover your collaboration habits and team interaction patterns.

AI Habits

Analyzes how you interact with AI tools, showing patterns in questions asked and topics queried. Understand your AI usage patterns and how you leverage AI assistance in your workflow.

Using Custom Summary

Generate summaries tailored to specific time periods and topics that matter to you. Custom Summary gives you full control over what gets summarized—select time ranges from your Pieces Timeline events and optionally add a focus to narrow your summary further.

Click the `Custom Summary` card on the homepage. If it's not visible, tap `Discover More` to view all single-click summary options, then select `Custom Summary`. Set your scoping: choose a **Time Range** (e.g., last 24 hours, this week, last week), optionally scope to **Signals** (detected projects), **Applications** (VS Code, Chrome, Slack, etc.), or **Websites** to narrow the focus. Combine multiple dimensions for precise results. Give your summary a name, pick a color, and choose an icon. This helps you recognize it at a glance when it appears in your summary library. Tap `Save` to store your configuration as a reusable template. Once saved, your template lives alongside built-in options like Morning Brief and Day Recap—trigger it with a single click whenever you need it, with no reconfiguration. Click `Generate` to start creating your custom summary.

Pro tip: If you generate the same kind of summary more than twice (e.g., weekly client updates, sprint retros), save it as a template. Build it once, use it forever.

Using Discover

Access additional summary options and request new summary types through Discover. Click the Discover summary card to open a popup displaying available summary options—you'll see the standard summary types plus additional options you haven't encountered yet, expanding your choices for generating insights.

Discover popup showing available summary options including Request a Summary

Requesting a New Summary Type

Suggest new summary types to help shape future Single-Click Summary options. From the Discover popup, select Request a Summary to open a form where you can describe what you need.

Click the `Discover` summary card on the homepage. In the Discover popup, select `Request a Summary`. Type an artifact name (up to 50 characters) describing the summary type you want. Enter a description (up to 500 characters) explaining what this artifact should do and how it would help you. Click `Submit Request` to send your suggestion to the Pieces team.

Request a Summary popup with Artifact Name and Description fields, and Submit Request button

Managing Your Summaries

Track, view, and manage your generated summaries through the Pieces Timeline. All generated summaries appear in your Pieces Timeline, organized chronologically by day. When you generate a summary, it appears under the current day with a "Queued" status. Once complete, summaries remain in the day section where they were created, and you can browse, search, and access them anytime.

Click `Show Timeline` in the top left to expand the Pieces Timeline. Click on the current day section (e.g., "Today, Jan 21st") to expand it and view all summaries and activities for that day. Queued summaries appear under the current day with a "Queued" status indicator, showing their position in the processing queue (e.g., "Queued (#3)", "Next in queue"). Once summaries finish generating, they remain in the day section. Scroll through the expanded day section to view all summaries, both queued and completed. Click any summary in your Pieces Timeline to view the full results, including detailed insights, related activities, and links to relevant documents or commits. Click the `caret icon` (dropdown arrow) at the top of the day divider to collapse the section and hide its contents.

If Single-Click Summaries isn't what you're looking for, check out the Timeline—your next-best stop for learning about how Pieces stores memories.