Quickstart

Quickstart

This walks through building a graph for a repository and using it. It assumes the synaptic binary is on your PATH (see Installation).

1. Build the graph

cd your-project
synaptic extract .

This scans the directory, extracts symbols and relationships, clusters and analyzes the graph, and writes everything to synaptic-out/. It honors .gitignore and .synapticignore, skips dependency and build directories, and skips sensitive files such as .env and private keys. A code-only run makes no network calls. See Extraction for the full discovery and caching behavior.

Key outputs (full list in Output Formats):

• synaptic-out/graph.json - the canonical graph
• synaptic-out/GRAPH_REPORT.md - structural insight report
• synaptic-out/graph.html, graph-3d.html, graph.svg - visualizations

2. Read the report

Open synaptic-out/GRAPH_REPORT.md for god nodes (most-connected symbols), surprising connections, import cycles, and suggested questions. See Analysis and Reports.

3. Query the graph

# Relevant subgraph for a topic:
synaptic query "authentication flow"

# Depth-first expansion (favors deep call chains):
synaptic query "request lifecycle" --dfs --max-nodes 40

# Shortest path between two symbols:
synaptic path login validate_token

# A node and its neighbours:
synaptic explain parse_config

# Reverse impact: what depends on a symbol?
synaptic affected parse_config --depth 3

See Querying for how seeds are resolved and how traversal works.

4. Explore visually

Open the generated files in a browser:

• graph.html - 2D explorer with search, community color, and relation filters
• graph-3d.html - 3D force graph
• tree.html - file tree; callflow.html - call-flow diagram

See Visualizations.

5. Keep it current

synaptic update path/to/changed_file.rs   # incremental rebuild
synaptic watch                            # rebuild automatically on save
synaptic hook install                     # rebuild on commit/checkout via git hooks

See Incremental Updates.

6. Use it from an AI assistant

synaptic serve                 # MCP server over stdio
synaptic install               # wire Synaptic into a host assistant

install wires Synaptic into a host assistant so it queries the graph before grepping or reading files: a Claude skill file + hooks, an always-on instructions block for other assistants, and a native MCP server + hook for Codex. See MCP Server and Assistant Integration.

Next steps

• Multiple repos or a monorepo: Workspaces and Federation
• Enrich docs/papers with an LLM: Semantic Analysis
• Pull in external sources: Ingestion
• Every flag of every command: Commands