AI agents & external tools
Connect OpenClaw, scripts, and other agents to your pod via Hub Protocol and the Synap CLI
AI agents & external tools
Synap is built so any agent or automation can work on your data with governance (permissions, proposals). You are not locked into a single chat UI.
Mental model
| Layer | Role |
|---|---|
| Data pod | Source of truth: entities, documents, events, API keys |
| Hub Protocol | Stable HTTP surface for agents: POST /api/hub/* on your pod |
| Intelligence service | Optional hosted or self-hosted “brain” that calls the Hub |
| CLI & skills | Laptop / OpenClaw bridge: npx @synap/cli, skills, provisioning |
External tools (OpenClaw, n8n, your own scripts) should talk to the pod via Bearer token + Hub routes, not by scraping the web app.
1. Synap CLI (@synap/cli on npm)
Use this when you want a guided setup from a machine that should talk to your pod (including OpenClaw and similar stacks):
The CLI walks through linking an existing OpenClaw install, pointing at a fresh server, or a local laptop flow. It is the user-facing entry for “connect my agents to Synap.”
Direction of travel: today you may still see two surfaces — a
synapscript shipped with the backend repo (install/update/migrate in Docker) and@synap/clion npm (agent bridge). We are consolidating toward one coherent CLI story; until then, usenpx @synap/clifor agents & OpenClaw, and the backendsynaphelper for pod install/update when you self-host from the repo.
2. OpenClaw + Synap skill
For OpenClaw, install the community-facing Synap skill so the agent uses Hub Protocol only (no direct DB access):
- Skill source lives with the backend repo under
skills/synap/(see SKILL.md in that tree). - Self-hosted pods can use
deploy/setup-openclaw.sh(in the backend repo) which calls the pod’s provisioning endpoint with a provisioning token to create an agent user and API key.
After setup, the agent authenticates like any other Hub client.
3. Hub Protocol (reference)
All Intelligence ↔ Pod traffic for agents goes through Hub Protocol REST, for example:
- Base URL:
https://<your-pod>/api/hub/... - Auth: Bearer API key (and workspace context as required by the route)
Deep reference lives under Build & integrate (not duplicated here):
- Synap Intelligence overview — how the agent layer relates to the pod
- Integrations overview — webhooks, streams, patterns
- Skill invocation (HTTP) — deterministic, typed calls to named skills on the pod
4. After you connect
- Guides → Second brain — product-shaped workflows on top of the graph
- Development setup — if you are extending the monorepo
- Event catalog — what the pod emits
If you only need the desktop / browser app, start at synap.live (sign up and download) — no Hub setup required.