Synapse vs Sculptor (2026): let Imbue Sculptor agents share context with Codex and Gemini

Short answer

Sculptor runs and orchestrates its own agents. Synapse connects agents in any tool. Sculptor (from Imbue) is an MIT desktop app where each workspace is a git worktree with agents, diffs and PRs, and its sculpt CLI lets one Sculptor agent prompt another and wait. Synapse keeps live links between any CLI agents on your machine, injecting one agent's recent conversation into another on every prompt, and lets linked agents message each other across vendors. Both are free and MIT. Sculptor is the more complete workspace. Synapse reaches agents Sculptor does not manage.

At a glance

	Synapse	Sculptor
What it is	Canvas and messaging layer for every agent on your machine, plus a desktop app in development	Desktop workspace for parallel coding agents in worktrees
License	MIT, open source	MIT, open source (open-sourced around mid 2026)
Price	Free	Free, you pay only your model provider
Account	None	Not documented on the current product page; Claude login or API key for the agent
Integrated agents	Claude Code, Codex (full); Gemini CLI, OpenCode, Cursor Agent, Amp, Copilot CLI	Claude Code and Pi; other terminal agents in the built-in terminal
Isolation	None, not the focus	Git worktree per workspace (clone and in-place modes experimental)
Live context links between running agents	Yes, directional, every prompt	No
Agent to agent messaging	Yes, any linked agents, across CLIs, pull-based	`sculpt agent send`, between Sculptor agents, synchronous with `--follow`
Sees agents it did not launch	Yes, by process scan	No, only its own agents
Session forks	In development (Claude Code, Codex)	Listed as planned on an older page; not found in current docs
Diff review, PRs, CI Babysitter, Linear, extensions	No	Yes

Sculptor facts are from Imbue's product page and the Sculptor GitHub repo checked on 16 October 2026.

What Sculptor is

Sculptor is an Electron desktop app from Imbue, an AI research lab in San Francisco. Each workspace is an isolated copy of your repo, a git worktree with its own branch by default. A workspace can hold several agents in tabs, and they all share that working copy. You talk to agents in a rich chat UI with tool-call cards, plan mode, effort levels and live diffs, then commit, open a GitHub PR and merge back.

It also has a spec-to-review skill pipeline run by separate named agents, an experimental CI Babysitter that fixes red CI, a Linear extension and an extensions SDK. Integrated harnesses are Claude Code and Pi, a community open-source harness that opens up other model providers. Latest stable is v0.48.0 (21 September 2026).

The 2026 move from containers to worktrees

Sculptor launched in 2025 with one Docker container per agent and a "Pairing Mode" that synced files both ways. In 2026 it switched to git worktrees by default, with the option to run the whole app in a container or on a remote machine.

Imbue's own history doc gives the reasons. Users found containers confusing, Docker Desktop on macOS hurt performance, and isolation got in the way of agents inspecting each other's work. In their words: "We've found it very powerful to allow agents to inspect each other's work, and per-agent isolation gets in the way of that."

That is the same instinct behind Synapse. The two tools just act on it at different scopes.

What Synapse is

Synapse is not a place to run agents. It puts every live coding agent on your machine on one canvas, grouped by git repo. Drag from one agent to another and the second one sees what the first is doing. Linked agents can also message each other, whichever CLI each one runs in.

synapse link codex-tests
synapse send codex-tests "Auth refactor is done in the Sculptor workspace. Rerun the suite?"

How Sculptor agents and Synapse agents talk to each other

Sculptor:

With the sculpt CLI, any Sculptor agent can create workspaces and agents and prompt any other Sculptor agent: sculpt agent send <agent-id> "<msg>" --follow. With --follow it streams the reply and exits when the turn ends. Imbue calls this "delegate-and-await: the core orchestration pattern".
sculpt agent list and status show other agents' progress and pending questions.
Agents in one workspace share the same files and git state, so one can build while another writes tests.
Answering an agent's question is kept for the human in the UI. An orchestrating agent can only interrupt.

All of this works for agents Sculptor launched and manages.

Synapse:

Links are live and directional. Draw A to B and, on every prompt, B gets what A has said since last time, up to 8,000 characters per link. No agent has to ask.
Any two linked agents can message each other through MCP tools, a CLI or a skill, across vendors, so Claude Code can ask a Codex or Gemini agent what it found.
Agents are found by scanning processes and their working folders, in terminals, tmux or other apps, without a relaunch.
Messages are pulled, not pushed. An idle agent does not wake up on a message, which is the opposite of Sculptor's synchronous --follow.

Put simply: Sculptor lets one of its agents drive another and wait. Synapse keeps agents from different tools continuously aware of each other.

Open source, accounts and privacy

Both are MIT licensed. Sculptor says it runs locally, that your data never leaves your machine, and that Imbue does not store repos or train on code. Its telemetry policy was not stated on the pages we read, and whether a signup is needed today is not documented on the current product page. At its 2025 launch, a Hacker News commenter said downloading required an email address.

Synapse has no account and makes no network calls. Links and messages live in ~/.synapse.

Where Sculptor is ahead

A complete parallel-dev workflow. Workspaces, a rich chat UI, diff review, PRs with a merge queued state, CI Babysitter, Linear and extensions. Synapse has no diff review, PR, CI or issue tracker features.
Synchronous orchestration. sculpt agent send --follow, with exit codes and JSON output, lets an agent drive others and wait for results. Synapse messages are pull-based.
Linux today and a steady release cadence from a well-funded lab. Synapse is new and macOS-first, and its desktop app is not released yet.

If you mainly run Claude Code and want one app to take work from spec to merged PR, Sculptor is the stronger choice.

Using Synapse with Sculptor

Synapse discovers CLI agent processes wherever they run. That should include agents Sculptor runs as normal terminal processes, but we have not verified it. Sculptor runs its integrated Claude Code in a streaming JSON mode, so how Synapse's prompt hook behaves there is untested.

Keep Sculptor for workspaces, diffs and PRs.
Install Synapse: node install.mjs && npm start.
Run a Codex or Gemini agent in a plain terminal, or in Sculptor's built-in terminal, which Sculptor's own agent tools do not reach.
On the canvas, check which agents show up, then link the Codex or Gemini agent to the Claude Code agent working on the same repo.
Use sculpt agent send for orchestration inside Sculptor and synapse send for messages to agents outside it.

Who should pick which

Pick Sculptor if you want a free, open-source workspace for parallel Claude Code or Pi agents with diffs, PRs and an agent that can drive other agents.
Pick Synapse if your agents live in different tools and CLIs, you want them to share context without an orchestrator, or you want a small tool with no account and no network calls.
Run both if you like Sculptor's workflow and also run Codex, Gemini or other CLIs that need to know what your Sculptor agents are doing.

FAQ

Is Synapse a Sculptor alternative?

Partly. Synapse covers live context links and messaging between agents in any CLI on your machine. It does not replace Sculptor's worktrees, chat UI, diff review and PR flow, and it is meant to run alongside tools like Sculptor.

Is Imbue Sculptor open source?

Yes. Sculptor is on GitHub under the MIT license, open-sourced around mid 2026. It is free; you pay only your model provider.

Does Sculptor still use Docker containers?

Not by default. In 2026 Sculptor moved from one Docker container per agent to git worktrees per workspace. You can still run the whole app in a container or on a remote machine as an experimental option.

Can Sculptor agents talk to each other?

Yes, inside Sculptor. The sculpt CLI lets one Sculptor agent send a prompt to another with sculpt agent send and wait for the reply. It only reaches agents Sculptor manages, such as its Claude Code and Pi agents. Synapse links agents across any CLI on your machine, including Codex and Gemini.

Which agents does Sculptor support?

Sculptor integrates Claude Code and Pi, and you can run other terminal agents in its built-in terminal without the rich integration. Codex was added in December 2025 according to an older product page, but it is not listed as an integrated harness in the current docs.

Does Synapse see agents running inside Sculptor?

It should, for agents Sculptor runs as normal terminal processes, because Synapse finds agents by scanning processes. We have not verified this, and Sculptor's integrated Claude Code runs in a special streaming mode, so check the canvas after you install.