Install & set up

Requirements

A Mac running macOS 26 or later. Apple silicon is where the embedding model runs well.
For asking questions in English and building with AI: Claude Code signed in to a Claude Pro or Max plan, or Codex signed in to a ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Business or Enterprise plan. Neither is needed for Raw Text, Raw Cypher or vector search.
For vector search: a one-time 310 MB download of the embedding model, offered when you first need it.

Download

Get the disk image from getsyncretic.com and drag Syncretic into Applications. The app is sandboxed, with only the outgoing-network entitlement (for link previews, the AI command lines, the model download and sharing) and local-network use for drawing on an iPad.

The license

Without a license Syncretic opens graphs read-only: you can open projects, explore, search and read, but not change anything. That is how a graph shared from the web opens on a Mac that hasn’t bought the app.

Buy

Buy a license on the site. Checkout gives you a license key that starts with SYN1-, and a link that activates it in the app.

Activate

Open Syncretic › License… (or the “Reading only · Enter license” row at the foot of the sidebar), paste the key and click Activate. The key is a signed token checked on this Mac; it is never sent anywhere.

Move it

To use the key on another Mac, open the License window, click Remove from This Mac, then enter the key there.

The License window shows who it’s licensed to, when it was issued, and whether it was bought at the launch price. Settings › License shows the same status.

Choose Claude or ChatGPT

Open Settings (⌘,) and pick Work with: Claude | ChatGPT at the top. Under it, a status row says whether the command line is installed, who it’s signed in as, and its version.

Install the command line

If it isn’t on this Mac, the row offers Install. It runs the official one-line installer in a Terminal window, so you can see what it does:


curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash


curl -fsSL https://chatgpt.com/codex/install.sh | sh

Click Sign in. The app starts the tool’s own login and opens its page in your browser; if the browser doesn’t open, the link is shown so you can copy it. When it finishes, the row shows your account.

Pick models

Model is the one that answers your questions and builds with you; Routing is the one that decides how Auto search answers each question. Each menu also sets how hard the model thinks (Low, Medium, High, Extra high, Max for Claude). Defaults: Sonnet at medium for both, routing at low.

The footer of the AI section says it plainly: the AI works through Claude Code or Codex on this Mac, signed in to your plan, with no API key and no separate bill. It sees your question and your graph’s shape (type and property names); when you build, also what you write or share.

If a call later fails because the tool is signed out or too old for the model you chose, the app says so where it happened and offers the fix: Sign in, or Update (Claude Code updates itself from inside the app; Codex is updated in Terminal the way it was installed).

Optional: vector search

Nothing to do until you mark a text property as embedded in Shape. The first time you do, a sheet offers the download. Settings › Vector search shows the model, its licence (Apache 2.0, from Hugging Face), the download’s progress, and a Remove button; removing the weights keeps the vectors already made.

Optional: other AI apps

Settings › Use Syncretic from other AI apps connects the Claude app, Claude Code or Codex to your projects in one click each. See Other AI apps (MCP).