Skip to main content

Building Blocks: Lego Bricks

Synap provides the bricks. You build the castle.

The Philosophy​

Most productivity apps give you a pre-built house. It has a kitchen, a bedroom, and a garage. If you want a second kitchen or a yoga studio, you can't have one because the architect didn't plan for it.

Synap is different. We give you Lego bricks (Entities) and Instruction Manuals (Views). You can build a house, a spaceship, a castle, or a robot.

🧱 The Bricks: Entities​

Entities are the fundamental data objects in your system. They are the "atoms" of your knowledge base.

An entity is not just a row in a database; it's a strongly-typed object that exists in the Knowledge Graph.

Common Entity Types:​

  • 📝 Note: A piece of text content
  • ✅ Task: An actionable item with status
  • 👤 Person: A contact or profile
  • 📅 Event: Something with a start and end time
  • 📁 Project: A container for other entities
  • 🏢 Company: An organization

Why "Bricks"?​

Because they are composable and interconnected.

  • A Task can belong to a Project.
  • A Person can be assigned to a Task.
  • A Note can mention a Company.

Unlike rigid apps where a "Task" lives in the "To-Do List" and a "Note" lives in the "Notebook", in Synap, Entities live in the Graph. They don't have a fixed location until you view them.

🖼️ The Manuals: Views​

Views are the windows through which you interact with your bricks. They are the "lenses" that organize and display your data.

A View is simply a Query + Layout.

Common View Types:​

  • 📋 Table: Good for structured data (Tasks, CRM)
  • 🪜 Kanban: Good for status workflows (Projects)
  • 📄 List: Good for simple itemization (Shopping list)
  • 🕸️ Graph: Good for exploring connections (Relationship mapping)
  • 📅 Calendar: Good for time-based data (Schedule)
  • 🏗️ Bento: Composable dashboard grid — embed multiple views in one surface

The Power of Decoupling​

Because Views are separate from Entities, you can view the same data in multiple ways simultaneously:

  1. View your Tasks as a List today to check them off.
  2. View the same Tasks as a Kanban board to manage workflow.
  3. View the same Tasks on a Calendar to see deadlines.
  4. View the same Tasks on a Graph to see who is working on what.

If you update a task in the Calendar, it updates in the List, Kanban, and Graph instantly. One Truth, Many Views.

🏗️ The Castle: Workspaces​

Workspaces are where you arrange your Views to create a specific "App Experience."

A Workspace is a collection of Views tailored for a specific context.

Examples of What You Can Build:​

1. The "Project Manager" Workspace​

  • View 1: Kanban board of Active Projects
  • View 2: Calendar of Deadlines
  • View 3: Table of Team Members

2. The "Second Brain" Workspace​

  • View 1: Graph view of all Notes
  • View 2: List of "Inbox" ideas
  • View 3: Document view for current writing

3. The "CRM" Workspace​

  • View 1: Table of Contacts filtered by "Lead"
  • View 2: List of recent interactions
  • View 3: Kanban of Sales Pipeline

🧩 Putting It Together​

Imagine you want to build a Personal CRM:

  1. Step 1: The Bricks
    You create Person entities for your contacts and Meeting entities for your interactions.

  2. Step 2: The Logic
    You link them: Meeting with Person.

  3. Step 3: The Views

    • Create a Table View to list all People, showing columns for "Last Contacted" and "Company".
    • Create a Calendar View to show all Meetings.

  4. Step 4: The Workspace
    Group these views into a "Network" workspace.

Result: You just "built" a CRM app without writing a line of code. That is the power of Synap.