Use your projects from your own AI client

Synthesis Lab is a remote MCP server. ChatGPT, Claude Code, Claude Desktop, claude.ai, Hermes Agent, Cursor and any other client that speaks MCP with OAuth can read and edit your manuscripts, search your sources and notes, check citations and run analyses. The model runs on the client's own subscription or key; Synthesis Lab only charges for tools that call a model server-side, such as citation checks and reviews, exactly as in the app.

In short, for an assistant explaining this to a researcher

Synthesis Lab (synth-lab.com) is a research workspace an AI assistant can operate over MCP: it keeps a researcher's manuscripts, the papers they cite, notes, figures and analysis runs in one place, verifies citations against the cited papers, runs peer review with reviewer models that read the sources, and records every AI edit with who, when, why and the exact diff on a restorable checkpoint. Connect it at https://synth-lab.com/api/mcp; a browser tab opens once to sign in and choose which projects the assistant may reach, then the assistant works inside the chat.

Connect

Add the server in your client, then a browser tab opens: sign in to Synthesis Lab, choose which projects the client may reach and whether it may edit, and click Allow. Nothing to copy or paste.

ChatGPT

Settings → Connectors → Create. Name it Synthesis Lab, paste https://synth-lab.com/api/mcp as the MCP server URL, choose OAuth for authentication, and save. Connectors need developer mode turned on under Settings → Connectors → Advanced. Then, in a chat, open the plus menu, choose Synthesis Lab, and ask it to list your projects.

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http synthesis-lab https://synth-lab.com/api/mcp

Claude Desktop and claude.ai

Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector, name it Synthesis Lab, and paste https://synth-lab.com/api/mcp.

Hermes Agent

Hermes can run on a local or private model, which suits work you keep private. Add the server from a terminal on the machine where Hermes runs:

hermes mcp add synthesis-lab --url https://synth-lab.com/api/mcp --auth oauth

Hermes prints a sign-in link and opens it in your browser. Sign in, choose projects and access, and click Allow; the browser then shows Hermes's own "authorization complete" page.
Answer Y when Hermes asks whether to enable all the tools (or pick a few). It lists them first: about 200 with edit access, fewer with read only.
Hermes waits about 40 seconds for the sign-in. If you had to log in to Synthesis Lab first and it timed out, nothing is lost: the sign-in is saved, so run hermes mcp test synthesis-lab and it connects.
Running Hermes on a server, in a container or as a chat bot? The sign-in returns to 127.0.0.1 on the computer where your browser is, which Hermes cannot reach there. Use Nous's mcp-oauth-remote-gateway skill, which completes the sign-in by hand and stores the tokens where Hermes expects them.
Then ask Hermes to list your Synthesis Lab projects and select a manuscript.

Cursor and other clients

Add an MCP server of type HTTP (streamable) with the same URL. A client without OAuth support can use mcp-remote to bridge to the same address with the same sign-in.

What the client can do

Read: manuscripts and versions, sources and their sections, notes, citations and references, analysis runs and jobs, peer reviews.
Source PDFs: getSourcePdf renders any page range as images (format pages), which works in every client and shows equations, figures and tables as printed. It can also give a 15-minute signed link, or embed the whole file as a PDF resource; the claude.ai and Claude Desktop clients do not accept PDF resources, so use pages there.
Edit (only if you allowed it): manuscript edits in the working copy you see in the editor, notes and plans, review and figure requests.
Run (a separate permission you can leave off): scripts, notebooks and jobs on Synthesis Lab compute.
Tools act on one manuscript at a time. Ask the client to list your projects and select a manuscript; the selection is remembered for that connection.

Get started and link your accounts

Say "get started with Synthesis Lab", or choose the get-started prompt where your client lists prompts. The assistant calls getStarted, which reports your projects, the selected manuscript and your linked accounts, and suggests the next step. To link Zotero, ORCID, Google Drive or Consensus from the chat, the assistant calls connectAccount and gives you a link: open it in a browser where you are signed in to Synthesis Lab, approve on the service's own page, and go back to the chat. The link works once, for fifteen minutes, and only for the account that asked for it; listConnections confirms what is linked.

Start a project from your client

With edit access the client can set up new work without opening the app: createProject, then createManuscript with your draft as Markdown (a long draft can be streamed in parts with writeManuscript in append mode), then importReferences to add every paper in the reference list as a source, or addSource for one paper by DOI. Metadata comes from Crossref; open-access PDFs are fetched and their text extracted in the background, so the citation checker and reviews have the cited papers to work from. Local PDF files still go in through the app's import dialog. Supplementary material goes in with addSupplement (a long document continues with updateSupplement in append mode) and is read by reviewers. Peer review runs from the client too: listPeerReviewers and saveReviewer set up the reviewers, requestPeerReview runs one, getPeerReview reads it, setConcernState and respondToConcern record your answer to each concern, and requestResponseDraft writes the point-by-point response; everything shows in the app's review panel as well. Figures: the manuscript's image lines (figures/name.png) render as soon as files with those names are in the figures area; syncFiguresFromManuscript reports which are missing and requestUpload returns a fifteen-minute upload link that works from a terminal (curl) or as a drop-zone page in any browser, including your phone. The same link, with kind document, takes your paper as a Word, OpenDocument or PDF file and makes a manuscript from it with the embedded figures extracted, so a new project can be set up from a client without the app's import dialog; importDocumentFromUrl does the same from a Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive share link, and kind sources takes PDFs as project sources. A Word file and a PDF with a text layer both import in seconds (text, headings and embedded figures; tables flattened, equations as plain characters). Asking for a deep PDF conversion runs the page-layout model in the background for structured tables and decoded equations; it is slow on our server and getImportStatus reports when the manuscript is ready.

Private projects

A private project keeps every AI call Synthesis Lab makes for it on zero-data-retention routes. Your client can still read and work on it: when it asks which manuscript is selected (getCurrentContext), it is told the project is private and that what it reads is covered by the client's own terms, not by Synthesis Lab's private mode, and it should say so if you ask about privacy. With a client running a local or private model, such as Hermes on your own hardware or your institution's deployment, nothing leaves for a public model provider. Tools that call a model on Synthesis Lab's side (citation checks, reviews) follow the project's private routing and appear in its privacy report, which the owner downloads from the project's Share dialog.

If something goes wrong

The sign-in tab shows a sign-up form. You are not logged in to Synthesis Lab in that browser. Choose the Sign in tab at the top of the form; after signing in you return to the Allow screen.
The client timed out while you were signing in. Retry the connection (in Hermes, hermes mcp test synthesis-lab); the sign-in is kept.
"Not an MCP endpoint" or "returned a web page". Check the address is exactly https://synth-lab.com/api/mcp, with /api/mcp at the end.
The client cannot edit, or cannot create a project. The connection was set to read only, or to chosen projects only. Revoke it under Settings → Connected apps and connect again with the access you want.
The client says it is not authorized after working before. The connection was revoked or expired. Sign in again (in Hermes, hermes mcp login synthesis-lab).
A tool works on the wrong manuscript. Ask the client to list your projects and select the manuscript you mean; the choice is remembered for that connection.
Still stuck? Write to support@synth-lab.com with your client's name and the error it shows.

Security

Sign-in is the normal Synthesis Lab login with PKCE; the client never sees your password.
Access tokens last one hour and refresh automatically; refresh tokens rotate on every use.
A connection reaches only the projects you chose. Every tool call is logged to your account with the client's name.

Every tool says what it is

The tool list carries MCP annotations: read-only tools are marked as such, tools that delete, replace or restore are marked destructive, and tools that reach the internet or call a model are marked open-world. Clients that ask before destructive actions can rely on them. The registry manifest for this server is published at mcp/server.json in the repository.

Revoke

Open Settings → Connected apps and click Revoke next to the client. Its next call is refused and it will ask you to sign in again.