Creating with Claude

The most powerful way to create automations is also the simplest: tell Claude what you want, in plain language. Claude understands your mind, knows the automation system, and can create, modify, or debug automations through a conversation.

How it works

Open Claude Code and describe what you need. Claude will:

1. Understand your intent
2. Create the automation files in your mind
3. Configure the trigger, steps, and actions
4. Set up any supporting files (scripts, prompts, directories)

You don't need to know any technical details. Claude handles the structure, the syntax, and the wiring.

Examples to get you started

Here are real requests you can make, along with what Claude will create:

"Watch my sales data folder and tell me when something changes"

Claude creates a file-change automation that monitors your sales data directory. When any file is added or modified, it reads the change, generates an analysis, and saves a summary to your daily notes.

"Every Monday morning, summarize what I accomplished last week"

Claude creates a scheduled automation with a weekly trigger. It reads your completed tasks and recent notes, then asks the AI to write a concise weekly review. The summary is saved as a new note in your Focus area.

"When I open Synap, check if I have any overdue tasks and notify me"

Claude creates an app-launch automation with a cooldown so it doesn't fire every time you switch windows. It reads your task data, checks for overdue items, and sends you a desktop notification if anything needs attention.

"Pull the weather forecast every morning and save it to my daily notes"

Claude creates a scheduled automation that calls a weather API each morning, formats the response, and writes it to a markdown file in your mind. You start each day with the forecast already in your notes.

"Back up my important documents every night at midnight"

Claude creates a scheduled automation that copies specific files to a backup directory, adding the date to each filename. Your critical documents are preserved automatically.

"When a new CSV file appears in my data folder, convert it to a summary report"

Claude creates a file-change automation that triggers on new CSV files. It reads the file, runs a transformation script to extract key metrics, and writes a formatted markdown report.

Modifying existing automations

You can also ask Claude to change automations that are already running:

• "Make my morning brief run at 8 AM instead of when I open the app"
• "Add a notification step to my data pipeline"
• "Disable the watchdog for now"
• "Change my weekly summary to run on Fridays"

Claude finds the automation, understands its current configuration, and makes the change.

Tips for good results

• Be specific about the trigger. Tell Claude when you want it to run — on a schedule, when a file changes, when you open Synap, or only when you manually trigger it.
• Mention what files or folders are involved. If your automation needs to read or write specific data, tell Claude where it lives in your mind.
• Describe the end result. What should exist after the automation runs? A new note? A notification? A file in a specific location?
• Start simple and iterate. Get a basic version working first, then ask Claude to add more steps or refine the behavior.

What happens behind the scenes

When Claude creates an automation, it writes a structured definition file in your mind's system directory. This file describes the trigger (when to run), the steps (what to do), and the configuration for each step. Synap's automation engine reads this file and handles execution automatically.

You never need to see or edit this file, but it's there if you're curious — and the superadmin documentation explains the full format for those who want to understand the internals.