Installation

Installation

Synaptic's engine and terminal workflow are a single static Rust binary named synaptic. There is no runtime or interpreter to install alongside it. The optional synaptic-ui desktop addon provides visual setup and a searchable interface to the complete CLI.

Requirements

• A stable Rust toolchain. The repo pins Rust 1.97.1 via rust-toolchain.toml, so a rustup-managed environment will select it automatically.
• Git, if you plan to use the PR dashboard, git hooks, or git-based workspace members.

Build from source

# Install the `synaptic` binary onto your PATH:
cargo install --path bin/synaptic

# Optional native UI (uses `synaptic` from the same directory or PATH):
cargo install --path bin/synaptic-ui

# ...or build it in-tree:
cargo build --release -p synaptic -p synaptic-ui

Prebuilt binaries

Tagged releases attach prebuilt binaries for Linux (x86_64), macOS (x86_64 and aarch64), and Windows (x86_64) to the GitHub Releases page. Each archive bundles synaptic, its syn alias, the optional synaptic-ui executable, and the README, LICENSE, and CHANGELOG. Each operating system gets its own native build; the same UI source and workflow are used on all three platforms.

Launch synaptic-ui from any directory. Open App and choose Add to applications to make it searchable from Windows Start, macOS Applications, or the Linux application menu without an administrator account. Then choose a workspace folder. See Desktop UI for the federation and MCP setup flow.

Updating

Once installed, update in place with:

synaptic self-update

This checks the latest GitHub Release, and if it is newer, prompts you before downloading the prebuilt archive for your platform, verifying its checksum, and replacing the running binary (and its syn alias). Updating is opt-in — Synaptic never checks or replaces itself on its own. To get a once-a-day "update available" reminder on ordinary commands, opt in with synaptic self-update --enable (off by default, throttled, and printed only to stderr).

A cargo install / source build can self-update too, but the swap installs the default-feature prebuilt binary; rebuild from source if you depend on extra features. See Updating for the full walkthrough and self-update for the flag reference.

Optional features

Several integrations are gated behind Cargo features and are off by default, so the default build stays small and dependency-light. Enable the ones you need at build time:

Feature	Enables
pg	synaptic ingest pg (live Postgres schema introspection)
push	synaptic export neo4j|falkordb --push <uri> (live database export)
office	synaptic ingest office (spreadsheet ingest)
gws	synaptic ingest gws (Google-Workspace ingest)
media	synaptic ingest media (audio/video transcription, also YouTube URL ingest)

# Example: build with Postgres ingest and live database push:
cargo install --path bin/synaptic --features pg,push

If you run a feature-gated subcommand on a build that lacks the feature, Synaptic prints a clear error telling you which feature to rebuild with. See Ingestion and Output Formats for what each feature unlocks.

Languages

All language extractors are compiled into the default build (39 lang-* features on by default). You do not need to enable anything per language to extract a mixed-language repo. See Languages for the full list and Development for building a single language in isolation.

Verify

synaptic --help
synaptic extract .

The first extract writes a synaptic-out/ directory next to your code. See Quickstart next.