Research Orchestration for Human Researchers and AI Agents
Synapse is a research orchestration platform that brings human researchers and AI agents together. It manages the full research lifecycle — from literature review and question formulation through experiment execution and report generation — with built-in agent management, compute orchestration, and real-time observability.
Inspired by the AI-DLC (AI-Driven Development Lifecycle) methodology and built upon Chorus.
Research Project ──> Research Questions ──> Experiments ──> Reports
^ ^ ^ ^
Human Human or AI Agent AI Agent
creates AI Agent executes & writes
project proposes reports analysis
progress
Four agent permission roles (composable):
| Permission | Responsibility |
|---|---|
| Pre-research | Literature search, related works discovery via Semantic Scholar |
| Research | Propose research questions, hypothesis formulation |
| Experiment | Execute experiments, allocate compute, report progress |
| Report | Generate experiment reports, literature reviews, synthesis documents |
The Autonomous Loop enables a self-sustaining research cycle: when all experiment queues are empty, the assigned agent analyzes the full project context and proposes new experiments for human review.
Dedicated /agents page with 4 composable permissions. Each agent gets an API key for MCP tool access. Agents are owned per-user with full isolation.
Project-level literature management:
- Manual addition — paste an arXiv URL, metadata auto-fetched via Semantic Scholar
- Auto-search — assign a
pre_researchagent to discover papers automatically - Deep Research — generate a comprehensive literature review document
Five-column Kanban board (Draft → Pending Review → Pending Start → In Progress → Completed) with:
- Live status badges — sent / ack / checking resources / queuing / running
- Progress timeline — agents report step-by-step via
synapse_report_experiment_progress - Autonomous Loop toggle — agent proposes new experiments when queues are empty
On experiment completion, the assigned agent writes its own report — analyzing results in the context of the project's goals, in the project's language. Replaces template-based document generation.
- GPU pool management with node/GPU inventory
- Per-project compute pool binding (strong constraint on GPU reservations)
- Managed SSH key bundles for secure agent access to compute nodes
- Dynamic agent timeout based on experiment compute budget
Hierarchical question board with parent-child relationships, status progression (open → elaborating → experiment created → completed), and linked experiment tracking.
Real-time SSE delivery with Redis Pub/Sub for cross-instance propagation. Preferences grouped by agent permission categories. Agents receive notifications for assignments, mentions, and autonomous loop triggers.
30+ MCP tools covering the full research workflow:
| Category | Tools |
|---|---|
| Read | synapse_get_research_project, synapse_get_experiment, synapse_get_assigned_experiments, synapse_get_project_full_context |
| Literature | synapse_search_papers, synapse_add_related_work, synapse_get_related_works |
| Experiment | synapse_start_experiment, synapse_submit_experiment_results, synapse_report_experiment_progress |
| Compute | synapse_list_compute_nodes, synapse_get_node_access_bundle, synapse_sync_node_inventory |
| Autonomous | synapse_propose_experiment |
| Collaboration | synapse_add_comment, synapse_get_comments |
git clone https://github.com/Vincentwei1021/Synapse.git
cd Synapse
export DEFAULT_USER=admin@example.com
export DEFAULT_PASSWORD=changeme
docker compose up -dOpen http://localhost:3000 and log in.
Prerequisites: Node.js 22+, pnpm 9+, PostgreSQL
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env to configure DATABASE_URL
pnpm install
pnpm db:push
pnpm dev
open http://localhost:3000Set environment variables:
export SYNAPSE_URL="http://localhost:3000"
export SYNAPSE_API_KEY="syn_your_api_key"Install from Plugin Marketplace:
claude
/plugin marketplace add Synapse-AIDLC/synapse
/plugin install synapse@synapse-pluginsCreate .mcp.json in your project root:
{
"mcpServers": {
"synapse": {
"type": "http",
"url": "http://localhost:3000/api/mcp",
"headers": {
"Authorization": "Bearer syn_your_api_key"
}
}
}
}./install.shThe interactive installer provisions: VPC, Aurora Serverless v2 (PostgreSQL), ElastiCache Serverless (Redis), ECS Fargate, and ALB with HTTPS.
| Document | Description |
|---|---|
| CLAUDE.md | Development guide and coding conventions |
| Architecture | Technical architecture |
| MCP Tools | MCP tools reference |
| OpenClaw Plugin | Plugin design and hooks |
| Docker | Docker deployment guide |
AGPL-3.0 — see LICENSE.txt