Synapse

The nervous system between your AI and your notes.

MCP server that connects any AI to your Obsidian vault. Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Windsurf, and any MCP-compatible client. Save articles from your phone, ask questions across your notes, build a compounding knowledge base.

30-Second Setup

Claude Desktop

1. Open config: Mac ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json | Windows %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
2. Add Synapse to the mcpServers object:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "synapse": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "synapse-obsidian", "/path/to/your/obsidian-vault"]
    }
  }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop. Synapse tools appear automatically.

Claude Code

Add to .claude/.mcp.json in your home directory:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "synapse": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "synapse-obsidian", "/path/to/your/vault"]
    }
  }
}

Claude.ai / ChatGPT / Any remote AI

Run Synapse locally and expose it with a free tunnel:

# Terminal 1: Start Synapse
npx synapse-obsidian /path/to/vault --http --port 3777

# Terminal 2: Expose it (free, no account needed)
npx cloudflared tunnel --url http://localhost:3777

Copy the tunnel URL. Add https://your-tunnel-url.trycloudflare.com/mcp as a custom MCP integration in your AI client.

Getting Started

Once connected, say:

"Help me get started with Synapse"

Synapse scans your vault and gives you three options:

• Use my existing vault — Detects your folder structure, wikilinks, naming conventions. Nothing moved or overwritten. Synapse adapts to you.
• Set up a knowledge base — Creates organized folders: sources/ for raw content, notes/ for compiled knowledge, outputs/ for query results. Best for a focused research topic.
• Custom — You tell Synapse how you want things organized.

It also asks what you'll use the vault for (research, business, academic, life OS) so it can tailor the experience.

What You Can Do

Save anything, from anywhere

"Save this article: https://example.com/interesting-post"

Fetches the page, converts to markdown, saves to your vault. Works from your phone.

Ask questions across your notes

"What do my notes say about pricing strategy?"

Searches your vault, reads relevant files, synthesizes a cited answer.

Build a compounding wiki

"Process all new articles in my vault"

Turns raw sources into summaries, concept pages, entity pages — all cross-linked with wikilinks. Every answer feeds back into the knowledge base.

Health check your notes

"Run a health check on my vault"

Finds broken links, orphan pages, missing frontmatter, stale content. Fixes what it can.

All Tools

Tool	What it does
synapse_setup	Onboarding — scans vault, presents options, configures Synapse
synapse_configure	Saves your vault preferences
synapse_save	Save content from a URL or pasted text
synapse_status	Full vault overview with suggested actions
synapse_ingest	Process a source into organized pages
synapse_compile	Find and process all unprocessed sources
synapse_query	Research a question across your knowledge base
synapse_lint	Health-check for broken links, orphans, gaps
synapse_init	Scaffold a new knowledge base from scratch
vault_read	Read any file
vault_write	Create or update any file
vault_list	List files in vault or subdirectory
vault_search	Full-text search
vault_stats	File counts and structure
vault_frontmatter	Read YAML metadata from a file

How It Works

Synapse is an MCP server — an open protocol for connecting AI to tools and data. It gives your AI read/write access to your vault (and nothing else — sandboxed to the vault directory).

• Stdio (default) — For desktop AI apps (Claude Desktop, etc.)
• HTTP (--http) — For browser-based AI (Claude.ai, ChatGPT, etc.) via tunnel
• Cloud (--cloud) — Hosted mode with Google Drive OAuth (coming soon)

Your vault is just a folder of markdown files. Synapse doesn't need Obsidian to be running — it works with any folder.

Requirements

• Node.js 18+ (check with node -v)
• An Obsidian vault or any folder of markdown files
• Any MCP-compatible AI client

License

MIT — MainLoop Systems