Which SynapseX surface should you use?

SynapseX ships the same first-party models through four surfaces, and picking the wrong one costs you an afternoon. This page matches five common jobs to one recommended surface each, then states plainly what every surface can and cannot do today, so you install once and get it right.

Pick by the job you are doing

SynapseX Chat — the browser app

Best for everyday questions, reading documents, talking instead of typing, and managing your plan.

• Nothing to install. Open chat.synapsex.ai .
• An account is required. Sign in before your first message; choose Continue with Google, which also creates the account on first use.
• Attach PDF, DOCX, XLSX, XLS, CSV, TXT, MD and JSON files (10 MB per file) and ask about their actual contents.
• Dictate with the microphone button instead of typing.
• Memory carries facts about you across conversations, so you stop re-explaining your stack and your role.
• Turbo spends extra compute on hard turns and merges the best answer. One constraint worth knowing up front: a Turbo turn has no tools, so switch Turbo off for a turn where you want the assistant to look something up.
• Plans, credit purchases and your personal sxc_ API keys all live here.

Start: Start with SynapseX Chat · Section: SynapseX Chat

SynapseX Desktop — the local coding agent

Best for working on a real repository on your own machine.

• Installs on macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel), Windows (portable ZIP) and Linux (AppImage).
• Open a local project folder, start a session, and let the agent read and edit your files and run terminal commands.
• It runs the agent server inside itself on 127.0.0.1, behind HTTP Basic auth with a fresh random password per launch. Your code, terminal and git stay on your machine — only model traffic leaves it.
• You choose how much freedom the agent has before it starts: Full access, Sandboxed or Strict.

One install note: the macOS build is not notarized, so the first launch needs right-click → Open instead of a double-click. Details on Install SynapseX Desktop.

Start: Start with SynapseX Desktop · Section: SynapseX Desktop

SynapseX CLI — the terminal agent

Best for scripting, CI steps, headless machines, and anyone who lives in a terminal.

The command you type is synapsex-code.

• Run it with no arguments for the interactive terminal agent in the current project.
• synapsex-code run "…" performs one non-interactive turn, which is what you put in a script.
• synapsex-code serve starts a headless HTTP server so other tools can drive the agent.
• synapsex-code mcp add … connects Model Context Protocol servers, so the agent can use your own tools.

Two things work fully offline, with no account and no charge: a local OpenQASM simulator and a local file runner. Save this as bell.qasm:

OPENQASM 2.0;
include "qelib1.inc";
qreg q[2];
creg c[2];
h q[0];
cx q[0],q[1];
measure q -> c;

Then run:

synapsex-code lab run bell.qasm --sim --shots 100 --seed 7

mode=sim (local, off-ledger, $0)  file=bell.qasm
qubits=2  shots=100
counts:
  11  57  (57.0%)
  00  43  (43.0%)

Start: Start with SynapseX CLI · Section: SynapseX CLI

Platform API — SynapseX inside your own application

Best for putting SynapseX models behind your own product, service or internal tool.

• OpenAI-wire-compatible chat completions at https://platform.synapsex.ai/api/v1.
• Billing is prepaid credits, pay-per-use. You need a positive credit balance before any call succeeds — with a zero balance the API returns HTTP 402 insufficient_quota.
• Keys start with sk-synapsex- and are created in the platform console. The plaintext key is shown exactly once.
• Because the wire format is OpenAI-compatible, the stock openai SDK works by changing one line:

from openai import OpenAI
 
client = OpenAI(
    api_key="sk-synapsex-YOUR-API-KEY",
    base_url="https://platform.synapsex.ai/api/v1",
)
 
resp = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="synapsex-forge-code-14b-v1",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}],
)
print(resp.choices[0].message.content)

Start: Start with the Platform API · Section: Platform API

What is shared between surfaces, and what is not

Shared: all four surfaces run first-party SynapseX models. The exact list a surface offers differs, so read it from the surface itself — GET https://chat.synapsex.ai/api/models for chat, and GET /api/v1/models with your key for the API platform.

Not shared: accounts, API keys, credits and billing.

A chat subscription grants nothing on the API platform, and API credits grant nothing in chat. The two credit units are different too, so never convert between them in your head — see Credits and spending and API keys and scopes.

Not available today

Things people actively look for that SynapseX does not currently offer:

• No VS Code extension. Use SynapseX Desktop or the CLI in your terminal.
• No browser extension.
• No self-serve email and password sign-up on chat.synapsex.ai. Use Continue with Google. (The API platform at platform.synapsex.ai does have email and password sign-up.)