Your courses, on every device¶

Synapse is a study workspace. Organize courses into chapters, read and annotate the material, train with generated exercises and watch your progress until the exam. Everything lives on your device and works offline; your devices sync with or without a server.

Try it in your browser Install the app See the features

A course with its chapters, materials, training and mock exams — Courses and chapters, indigo palette

The PDF reader with highlights, a note and linked lexicon notions — Annotating a lecture, crimson palette

A training session with a revealed answer — A training session, terminal palette

Progress tracking with per-course accuracy and daily activity — Progress until the exam, notebook palette

Use Synapse¶

Install the app on your computer or phone, add your courses and configure converters, AI and sync.

Install and configure

Host a server¶

One Node.js service that serves the browser app, holds accounts and keeps your devices in sync.

Install a server

Contribute¶

A pnpm monorepo with a documented architecture and a full test suite. Build it, change it, send patches.

Development

What it does¶

Courses with chapters, uploaded materials (PDF, office and markup formats) and external links.
A PDF reader with highlights, drawings, anchored notes, per-page rich text notes, per-course colour palettes and undo/redo. The annotated PDF can be exported.
A lexicon of notions linked to the exact slides where they appear.
Generated exercises (multiple choice, true/false, open questions) with local grading, adaptive sessions and per-chapter progress. AI is always opt-in: bring your own key or a local model, or skip it entirely.
Full offline operation, device-to-device sync and a one-file backup.
Three languages (English, French, Brazilian Portuguese), six colour themes, and accessibility checked against WCAG.

Desktop, mobile and browser are the same application. A desktop or mobile install is complete on its own. A server is an optional peer that adds accounts, a browser UI, heavier document conversion and a sync log that is always online. The architecture page explains how the pieces fit together.

Support the project¶

Synapse is free and open source. If it helps you study, you can buy me a coffee.

A note on AI¶

AI tools helped build Synapse, used responsibly: a plan first, every result reviewed, with quality, security and accessibility in mind. The details are in AI assistance.

Every AI feature within the app itself is fully opt-in: nothing is configured by default, and no content leaves your device until you set up a provider yourself.