Personal knowledge management
Capture first. Structure follows.
Stop losing ideas in folders. Put in a note, a link or a thought, and it becomes a typed record connected to everything else you know — on a Data Pod you own.
How it works
- Capture without deciding where it goes
The question “where does this go?” is what kills a capture habit. In Synap you don't answer it. Write in the Browser, or ask the agent you already use — Claude, ChatGPT and others connect to your pod — to keep something for you.
- Structure arrives as a proposal
A note with action items becomes tasks. A link becomes an article with its author and date. A name becomes a contact. Each change is proposed for your review, so the structure stays yours.
- Connections grow on their own
Records link to the people, projects and topics they mention. Open them as a list, a board, a document or a graph — the same records underneath, never a copy.
- Ask across everything
Because the knowledge is structured, your agent can answer precisely: “Find the article I saved about React last year”, “Summarize last week's meetings”.
Why a pod, not another notes app
It's your server.
Your knowledge lives in a dedicated Data Pod — a PostgreSQL database you own, or self-host for free. Not a row in someone else's shared cloud.No maintenance tax.
No folder taxonomy, no tag hygiene, no link gardening. The system stays organized while you think about something else.Nothing changes silently.
Every consequential change is a proposal you approve, and the history is kept. You can always see what changed and why.
Common questions
What is personal knowledge management (PKM)?
Personal knowledge management is the practice of capturing, organizing, and connecting information for your own use — notes, research, bookmarks, ideas, and experiences. The goal is a system that helps you think better, remember more, and make connections across different areas of your life.
How is Synap different from other PKM tools like Notion or Obsidian?
Most PKM tools make you do the organizing: folders, tags, templates, and links by hand. Synap flips this: you capture, and the structure is handled. Notes, links and messages are classified into typed records with relationships, proposed for your review. Your knowledge graph grows without maintenance.
What is a capture-first PKM approach?
Capture-first PKM puts frictionless capture ahead of upfront organization, because “where does this go?” kills the habit of capturing at all. In Synap you put anything in and the system decides where it goes: notes with action items become tasks, links become articles with extracted metadata.
Does Synap work as a second brain?
Yes. Synap captures from the Browser and from any agent you connect, structures what arrives into a typed knowledge graph, and grows the connections over time. Unlike typical second-brain tools, your data lives on a dedicated server you own. Synap Browser, the desktop app, runs on macOS, Windows and Linux.