Why I built SyncPen
SyncPen grew out of frustration. I am a writer and an engineer, and I wanted one place to write that was calm and minimal, worked with the people I write with, and kept up with the tools I actually use every day. I could not find it, so I built it.
SyncPen grew out of frustration. I am a writer and an engineer, and I wanted one place to write that was calm and minimal, worked with the people I write with, and kept up with the tools I actually use every day. I could not find it, so I built it.
Two frustrations pushed me to start.
The writing apps made me choose. The minimal, focused editors I loved had no real collaboration and no modern AI. The tools that had collaboration and AI were heavy and busy, and got in the way of the writing itself. I wanted the calm of a distraction-free editor and live collaboration and an AI that actually helped — without the bloat that usually comes attached.
Publishing was a chore. If you draft in Notion or Google Docs and then move to WordPress or another CMS, you know the tax: reformatting, fixing links, re-placing images, losing an afternoon to copy-paste. The writing was finished; the busywork was not. No writing app I knew had taken that problem seriously. SyncPen closes the gap — write once, publish to your CMS in a click.
That is how SyncPen was conceived.
What you get as a writer
SyncPen keeps the essentials and leaves out the rest:
- Enough styling, never too much — fundamental text styling to shape a piece, and nothing designed to distract you from it.
- Sources without the mess — a straightforward way to add and manage sources. Because everything is Markdown, your sources are linked and referenced automatically at the end of your work, instead of being managed by hand.
- penFriend, your built-in AI — proofread, find a synonym, pull a quote, rewrite a paragraph, or whatever request you have in the moment.
- Folder-level AI — point it at a folder, have it analyse what is there, and draft a new document on the fly.
- An asset library — keep your images and PDFs in one place, available across every document you write.
Where SyncPen goes further: a workspace your AI can write in
The part I am most excited about came later. SyncPen ships an MCP server, which means your AI — Claude Code, or any MCP client — can work directly in your library. Not copy-paste between windows. Actually inside your documents.
It can search your notes for context, draft straight into a document, and — the part that matters most — propose its changes as tracked suggestions you accept or reject. It never overwrites your words silently; the original stays until you say so. It can read the comments on a draft and answer them right there in the thread. And every change it makes is signed, so a shared document never leaves you guessing who wrote what — you, or the machine.
The point is not "the AI writes for you." It is that your AI works with you, in the open, and you stay the editor.
Built for the way writers actually work
As a journalist, writer, or researcher, you constantly manage sources and citations, and that process turns disorganised and unpleasant fast. Markdown fixes it quietly: link a source once and it is referenced cleanly at the end of your work.
SyncPen is for journalists, researchers, students, and anyone who lives in Markdown — and, increasingly, for the AIs they work alongside. It is the calm place to write, the easy way to publish, and now the workspace your AI can write in too.
That is why I built it.