The follow-up box: an Ember Console prompt that writes next session's opening question

The follow-up box is one more section at the end of your session report: a single open question for the version of you who walks into the next call. In Ember Console, the session-report builder for coaches I build, that box is a prompt and an eval. Ember Console is in closed beta.

One r/lifecoaching poster, asking how others keep track of client notes, lists that question among the things that go missing: “that ‘remember to ask them about X next time’ thing.”

The prompt is the easy half.

What goes in the follow-up box’s prompt?

The prompt names the thread this session left open and says what to do with it. Mine reads:

Find the one thing my client raised and did not finish. Write it as a single open question I can ask at the start of our next session, in their own words. Do not answer it.

That is narrower than the published question banks, on purpose. The International Coaching Federation’s blog offers five questions to reflect on after a session, and Full Focus offers six for the agenda whose first question is the client’s three top wins. Those fit any client; this box writes the one that fits only yours.

What should the eval fail?

The eval fails the box when the question could have been asked after any session. All three conditions have to hold: the question repeats something your client said out loud, it ends in a question mark, and it is the only question in the box.

The third condition is the easiest to leave out. An AI given an open instruction offers several candidates and leaves the choosing to you, which is the part of the job you wanted done.

The Ember landing page puts it this way: “Get tailored AI output for every section of your template, while Ember learns from your edits and checks each result against your own criteria.” One prompt and one eval per section is the box system, and setting the minimum standard covers the rule a box can fail.

Adding the box to a template you already send:

1. Add one box after your template’s last section.
2. Paste the instruction above, in your own words.
3. Write the three conditions as the failing rule.
4. Run your next session through it and read the question.
5. Fix the wording in Ember’s editor.

What is not stated yet?

Four questions about a box have no published answer, and they are mine.

1. Whether a box has its own name, and whether that name prints.
2. How many boxes a template starts with, and whether you can reorder them.
3. What an eval may check: length, wording, a fact, a rule you typed.
4. What happens when a box fails: how many reworks, and what you see.

Question three matters most here, because this eval asks three things at once. Until it is answered, keep each condition readable as one rule.

Any AI will write you a good coaching question. Only the rule makes it the one this session left you.

Questions people ask next?

How do you open a coaching session?

The strongest opening comes out of the session before it. One r/lifecoaching commenter says that when a client has not acted, their first question is what got in the way. A follow-up box hands you that question already written.

How do you write coaching session notes?

Section by section, with a rule for each. Your Ember Console template holds your letterhead and your boxes, each with its own prompt and eval, which is how one template serves an intake and a follow-up.