Local-first agent coordination bus

Claim · plan · message · log

Several agents, one repo, no collisions.

SYNAPSE is the layer beneath your agents: a single WebSocket hub where they claim file scopes, share a plan, see who is live, message each other, and replay a durable event log after a restart. Not a framework you build agents in — the bus that coordinates the ones you already run.

1runtime dependency
Local-firstno cloud, one machine
DurableSQLite event log, replayed on restart
FreeAGPL-3.0 core on PyPI

Not a framework. Not git worktrees.

The agent service bus most people only build ad-hoc.

Three camps coordinate parallel agents. Two of them solve a different problem; SYNAPSE is the third.

Agent frameworks

LangGraph · CrewAI · AutoGen

You write code that defines agents and their flow, in-process, one orchestrator spawning sub-agents. SYNAPSE does not ask you to build agents — it coordinates the ones you already run.

Git worktrees

Isolation, not coordination

Worktrees give each agent its own checkout and defer conflicts to merge time. That separates agents; it does not let them coordinate in real time.

SYNAPSE

The bus beneath them

A standalone, local-first coordination bus any terminal agent speaks: advisory file-scope claims, a shared blackboard, presence, peer messaging, and an event log that survives restarts.

What the hub gives you

One place owns presence, leases, and history.

Work claims with file scope

An agent leases a task and declares the files it will touch; the hub refuses an overlapping claim, so two agents never edit the same file. Leases expire and carry an epoch, so a crashed agent never blocks the work.

A shared plan + handoffs

A dual-ledger blackboard tracks tasks and progress with dependencies; a held task can be handed off atomically; a stall supervisor re-offers stuck work — all without a model in the loop.

Presence + direct messaging

See who is live, address one agent, a whole project group, or everyone. A wake mechanism re-invokes a turn-based assistant the moment a message for it arrives — no polling, no wasted turns.

Durable event log

Every claim, release, task, and checkpoint is recorded in an append-only SQLite log and replayed on restart, so a hub restart resumes live leases instead of losing them. It doubles as a cross-agent audit and provenance trail.

Quickstart

One command to join the bus.

pip install synapse-channel

synapse team            # hub + a local worker
synapse listen --name USER
synapse send --name USER --target FAST "status of TASK-1?"

synapse team brings up the hub and a worker in one command; each agent then claims a scope, shares the plan, and messages its peers over the channel.

Model workers reply on-channel through any OpenAI-compatible endpoint — including a local server — with a deterministic rule-based fallback for offline use.

Read the docs
Model-agnosticAny terminal coding agent, any vendor — the bus coordinates the agents, it does not replace them.
Local-first by defaultThe hub binds to loopback and runs on your machine. No cloud, no telemetry, one dependency.
Crash-durable spineAn append-only SQLite log replays on start-up, so a restart resumes live leases rather than losing them.
Open source on PyPIAGPL-3.0Python 3.10+one dependencylocal-firstdurable event log

It runs the fleet that builds it

Dogfooded at intensity — the friction we hit becomes the product.

SYNAPSE coordinates the team that develops SYNAPSE: several AI agents across a dozen research projects coordinate through one hub every day — directives, work claims, and recovery all flowing over the channel. A missed wake on a broadcast, a waiter that hung after a restart, a ghost connection blocking a re-arm — each was a real annoyance one afternoon and a shipped, tested fix by the evening.

1An agent claims a task and the files it will touch; the hub refuses any overlap.
2The shared plan tracks dependencies; a held task hands off atomically.
3Presence and direct messaging let agents talk; a wake trigger re-invokes them on a message.
4Every event is logged and replayed, so a restart resumes the work instead of losing it.

Free to start. Pay what it is worth.

Open core under AGPL-3.0. A commercial licence when you ship closed-source.

The full bus is free for research, personal, and open-source use. The commercial licence removes the copyleft for closed-source and SaaS and funds the work behind it.

01 / open core

AGPL-3.0

The whole bus: hub, claims, shared plan, presence, messaging, durable log, and CLI. Free for research, personal, and open-source projects.

Free · pip install synapse-channel

What you get →
02 / commercial

Indie & Team

A commercial licence that removes the copyleft for closed-source and SaaS. Pay-what-you-want for solo work; a flat team licence for a company.

Pay-what-you-want from CHF 9.99 · Team CHF 99/yr

Compare & buy →
03 / managed

Managed Hub

A hosted, multi-tenant hub for teams that want coordination as a service — the commercial federation layer of the Anulum studio platform.

Commercial engagement · custom

Talk to us →

How it compares

Where SYNAPSE is different.

Generalised from the public positioning of agent-orchestration and parallel-coding tools as of June 2026. Specifics vary by tool.

 SYNAPSETypical approach
What it doesCoordinates the agents you runA framework to build agents in
Parallel safetyLive file-scope claims, refused on overlapWorktrees — conflicts deferred to merge
State on restartDurable log, leases replayedIn-memory, lost on crash
ModelsAny vendor, any terminal agentOften single-vendor / in-process
DeploymentLocal-first, one dependencyCloud or heavy stack
SourceOpen core on PyPIClosed or bespoke

Ready to coordinate

Try it on PyPI. Buy the licence when you go closed-source.