Synthops

Intelligent infrastructure operations through MCP. Plan, execute, and audit operational work with structured methodology, approval gates, and a full decision audit trail.

Synth Ops runs as an MCP server inside Claude Desktop. Instead of learning a new tool, engineers describe what needs to happen in natural language. The system plans it, presents it for review, executes it deterministically, and logs every decision.

How It Works

Every operation follows a plan-then-execute contract:

1. Describe the work ("deploy api-server to staging", "investigate why latency spiked")
2. Review the generated plan — concrete steps with exact scripts, risk assessment, and rollback strategy
3. Approve or reject directly in the interactive plan review UI
4. Execute deterministically with no improvisation, stopping on failure
5. Audit every decision in a searchable debrief log

Operation Types

Type	Approval	Description
deploy	Required	Ship artifacts to targets
maintain	Required	Perform maintenance work
query	No	Gather information (read-only)
investigate	No	Diagnose problems (read-only)
trigger	Required	Execute external workflows
composite	Varies	Chain multiple operations

Architecture

Synth Ops is built on the MCP Contract layered architecture and serves as its reference implementation:

prompts/          Behavioral contracts and operation methodologies
tools/            MCP server with SQLite state (operations, targets, debrief)
apps/             Interactive UI cards rendered inline in the conversation
skills/           Platform-specific integration guides
schemas/          JSON schemas for all data types

Focused App Cards

Rather than a monolithic dashboard, Synth Ops presents small, purpose-specific UI cards inline in the conversation:

• Operations Status — active and recent operations at a glance
• Pending Approvals — operations waiting for engineer review
• Target Health — registered infrastructure targets and health breakdown
• Recent Decisions — audit trail of what was decided and why
• Plan Review — full interactive plan with approve/reject controls

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Claude Desktop with MCP support
• Node.js 20+

Install

cd tools/synth-state
npm install
npm run build

Configure Claude Desktop

Add to your Claude Desktop MCP settings (claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "synth-state": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["<path-to-repo>/tools/synth-state/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Use

Open a new conversation in Claude Desktop. Synth Ops loads automatically and presents the current operational state.

> Deploy api-server v2.4.1 to staging-1

> What's the health of our production targets?

> Investigate why response times increased after last deploy

Targets must be registered before operations can run against them. The system will prompt you if a target doesn't exist.

Development

cd tools/synth-state

# Run the MCP server in dev mode (auto-reloads)
npm run dev

# Build everything (server + all UI apps)
npm run build

# Build only the server
npm run build:server

# Build only the UI apps
npm run build:ui

Data is stored in data/synth.db (SQLite with WAL mode). Delete the file to reset state.

License

Apache 2.0 — see LICENSE.