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
Taskcan belong to aProject. - A
Personcan be assigned to aTask. - A
Notecan mention aCompany.
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:
- View your Tasks as a List today to check them off.
- View the same Tasks as a Kanban board to manage workflow.
- View the same Tasks on a Calendar to see deadlines.
- 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:
-
Step 1: The Bricks
You createPersonentities for your contacts andMeetingentities for your interactions. -
Step 2: The Logic
You link them:MeetingwithPerson. -
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.
-
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.