SynapseOS

Where the kernel thinks.

SynapseOS is an Arch-based operating system where AI is woven into the kernel layer — not bolted on top. It boots directly into an AI-native shell, runs a local LLM daemon as a system service, and exposes AI scheduling hints through a custom kernel module.

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Boot Experience

SynapseOS boots to a branded TTY and auto-logs in as root, launching synsh — an AI-native shell where you can type naturally or use standard shell commands.

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  ╚════██║  ╚██╔╝  ██║╚██╗██║██╔══██║██╔═══╝ ╚════██║██╔══╝
  ███████║   ██║   ██║ ╚████║██║  ██║██║     ███████║███████╗
  ╚══════╝   ╚═╝   ╚═╝  ╚═══╝╚═╝  ╚═╝╚═╝     ╚══════╝╚══════╝

  Where the kernel thinks.

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Components

Component	Description	Status
synsh	AI-native shell — type naturally or use shell commands	✅ 0.1.0
synapd	Local LLM inference daemon, Unix socket IPC	✅ 0.1.0
synapse_kmod	Kernel module — syscall monitoring, AI scheduling hints, sysfs interface	✅ 0.1.0
synnet	AI-assisted network policy daemon, nftables integration	✅ 0.1.0
synguard	AI security monitor — syscall event classification, threat scoring	✅ 0.1.0
synui	Wayland compositor skeleton (wlroots 0.19)	✅ 0.1.0

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Architecture

  User
   │
   ▼
 synsh  ──────────────────────────────┐
   │   natural language / commands    │
   ▼                                  │
 synapd  (local LLM — Mistral 7B)    │
   │   inference, socket IPC          │
   ├──► synguard  (security verdicts) │
   ├──► synnet    (network policy)    │
   └──► synapse_kmod  (kernel sysfs)  │
            │                         │
            ▼                         ▼
      /sys/kernel/synapse/        synui (Wayland)
      syscall_log, ai_hints,
      status, scheduler

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Services

All services start automatically on boot:

systemctl status synapd      # AI inference daemon
systemctl status synnet      # network policy
systemctl status synguard    # security monitor
lsmod | grep synapse_kmod    # kernel module

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Enabling AI

The live ISO ships without a model to keep the image size manageable. To enable full AI features:

# Copy a GGUF model (Mistral 7B recommended)
cp your-model.gguf /var/lib/synapd/models/synapse.gguf
systemctl restart synapd

# Confirm AI is loaded
synsh
# ⚡ AI online — type naturally or use shell commands

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Building

Prerequisites

• Arch Linux build VM
• archiso, mkinitcpio-archiso, meson, ninja, wlroots0.19
• llama.cpp built at llama-staging/usr/

Build

# Build all components
LLAMA_INC=llama-staging/usr/include \
LLAMA_LIB=llama-staging/usr/lib \
bash build-all.sh

# Build ISO
sudo mkarchiso -v \
  -w /tmp/synapse-work \
  -o /tmp/synapse-out \
  archiso/

Test in QEMU

qemu-system-x86_64 -m 4G -smp 2 -machine q35 \
  -drive file=SynapseOS-0.1.0-x86_64.iso,media=cdrom,readonly=on \
  -boot d -vga virtio -display sdl

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Protocol

synsh ↔ synapd communicate over a Unix socket using the SYN binary protocol:

typedef struct {
    uint32_t magic;        // 0x53594E41 "SYNA"
    uint8_t  version;      // 1
    uint8_t  msg_type;     // SYN_MSG_QUERY | SYN_MSG_RESPONSE
    uint16_t flags;
    uint32_t payload_len;
    uint32_t request_id;
    uint32_t client_pid;
    uint64_t timestamp_ns;
} syn_hdr_t;               // 28 bytes

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Roadmap

• First-boot model downloader
• synui — full Wayland compositor with AI-aware window management
• synnet — active connection monitoring and AI verdict enforcement
• synguard — ENFORCE mode with process isolation
• os-release / neofetch integration
• SynapseOS installer

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License

GPLv2 — SynapseOS Project