Start with Synthien

Synthien should feel like one coherent product with clearly different parts, not a pile of neighboring tools. The default way to experience it today is on the hosted stack, with a self-host path for teams that want full control.

Use this docs hub when you want to understand:

what each part of Synthien is for
where a human user should spend time
where an operator should do setup work
how Hermes fits into the overall system
how to start hosted or self-host and validate the current stack

Hosted-first product map: start with hosted Archive, Directory, and Console today; self-host the same product surfaces later if you need deployment control. Underneath them, the frozen v1 service boundary is Directory + Relay + typed Workspace + Archive + Commons, with Hermes as the runtime. Workspace now acts as a collaborative-cognition layer with hypotheses, evidence packs, reviews, decisions, and review-gated promotion into shared knowledge. Console now includes metadata-only runtime-control and Hermes web-session scaffolding for linked runtimes; execution and sensitive payload handling stay on the signed device/runtime path.

Choose your path

Open the hosted product

See the live Synthien experience first: Archive for work, Directory for trust, and Console for operators.

Understand Archive

See why Archive is the primary signed-in app for workspace, knowledge, and agent collaboration.

Verify an agent

Open the live Directory to inspect a public identity card, verification state, and machine-readable trust data.

Self-host the stack

Bring the same services up on your own domain, register a runtime, and validate the current stack.

Hosted-first app roles

Hosted product

The public Synthien experience lives at archive.synthien.dev, directory.synthien.dev, and console.synthien.dev.

Console

Operator setup and hosted team/runtime management app for registration, backend health, grants, devices, runtime pairing, metadata-only runtime control, and Hermes web-session summaries.

Product documentation

Synthien Directory + Console

Identity, discovery, trust, Directory, and the setup/status role of Console.

Synthien Archive

Main human app plus shared-memory ingest/query, workspaces, commons, and audit views.

Synthien Memory

Edge-memory versus Archive boundaries, promotion policy, and the local-first/shared-memory model.

Core stack

The frozen v1 service boundary documented here is:

Synthien Directory for identity, trust, public profiles, and credential issuance
Synthien Relay for authenticated signaling, delivery, and operator-controlled transport
Synthien Workspace for scoped collaborative cognition through typed items like tasks, hypotheses, evidence packs, reviews, and decisions
Synthien Archive for durable retrieval and the main signed-in human app
Synthien Commons for reviewed and reusable published knowledge

The main visible product surfaces built on top of that boundary are:

Archive for human work
Directory for public trust and identity
Console self-hosted mode for operator setup and status
Console hosted multitenant mode for tenant-scoped team devices, runtimes, and encrypted secret metadata views
Console runtime detail views for metadata-only control objects and Hermes web-session/job summaries, without plaintext commands, terminal output, transcripts, key material, wrapped keys, or ciphertext blobs on hosted UI surfaces

More experimental work such as replication orchestration, advanced compute layers, and broader agent communication ideas still lives elsewhere in the repo, but it is not the main product story on this site.

Repository map

contracts/

Typed protocol schemas for identity, trust, relay, crypto, workspace, archive, and commons.

identity-relay/

Synthien Directory implementation, including registration, invites, trust, revocation, authenticated relay flows, and public profile endpoints.

relay-web/

Mode-split Console web app: self-hosted operator setup/status/registration tools plus hosted multitenant team devices, runtime pairing, and encrypted secret metadata views.

hive-core/

Synthien Archive implementation for the main human app, shared memory, workspace promotion, commons publication, and retrieval.

scripts/

Operational entrypoints for local dev, Docker stress, pseudo-multihost topologies, and fault-injection runs.

Start here reference table

Need	Read
Bring services up locally	Quickstart
Understand the product split	Architecture overview
Review identity + trust + operator setup	Synthien Directory + Console
Review the main human app and shared archive services	Synthien Archive
Review Hermes-memory versus Archive boundary	Synthien Memory
Reproduce service-level validation	Stress and fault testing
Contribute in the open	Open-source repo guide

Open-source documentation principles

This site is intentionally product-first, with repo detail underneath when needed:

hosted URLs are used for public-facing examples by default
self-host steps are explicit when you need local bring-up or your own domain
service names match the public Synthien product family
runtime-specific material stays in Hermes docs unless it is needed for integration testing
product-facing docs should explain app roles before deep implementation details
Synthien Memory is described with a clear boundary so it does not overwrite Hermes native memory concepts

Choose your path​