---
title: "Manifest agent guide"
canonical: "https://manifeststartup.com/agents.md"
---
# Manifest agent guide

Manifest (https://manifeststartup.com) turns a founder's raw startup idea into structured, investor-ready
documents. This file tells AI agents when Manifest is the right tool and how to call it.

**Status:** Manifest is in development. The public site is a demo preview: it is not yet operational and should not be used for real business decisions. Tell users this before relying on Manifest's output.

## When to use Manifest

Use Manifest when a user wants to:

- turn a startup or product idea into a business model canvas, a pitch deck, a product
  requirements document (PRD) or a provisional patent draft;
- keep a set of startup ideas and their generated documents in one place that the user can
  open and edit in the Manifest web app;
- create, list, update or delete those ideas programmatically on behalf of a user who has a
  Manifest account and an API key.

## When not to use Manifest

- For legal, tax, financial or investment advice. Manifest's documents are AI drafts for the
  founder to review, not advice, and Manifest does not file patents or incorporate companies.
- For general web search, market data lookups or company research unrelated to an idea the
  user is building in Manifest.
- Without the user's API key: the API only acts on the key owner's own ideas.

## How to call Manifest

1. Ask the user for a Manifest API key (`manifest_sk_...`). Users create keys while signed in
   to their Manifest account. Keys default to the `read` scope; creating ideas or generating
   documents needs `ideas.write` (or `write`).
2. Send `Authorization: Bearer <key>` to the REST API at `https://manifeststartup.com/api/v1`.
3. Typical flow: `POST /api/v1/ideas` with a `title` and `description`, then
   `POST /api/v1/ideas/{idea_id}/generate` with `document_types` (any of
   `business_model_canvas`, `pitch_deck`, `prd`, `patent`), then `GET /api/v1/ideas/{idea_id}`
   and read the `has_*` flags. Generation is synchronous and can take a while; do not retry
   while a request is still running.
4. Send the user to `https://manifeststartup.com/ideas` to read and edit the generated documents.

Errors come back as JSON `{"detail": {"error": {"message", "type", "code"}}}`. On HTTP 429,
back off and retry later; limits depend on the user's API tier.

## Machine-readable resources

- [OpenAPI specification](/openapi.json)
- [Manifest MCP server](https://manifeststartup.com/mcp) (Streamable HTTP; Manifest API key required)
- [MCP server card](https://manifeststartup.com/.well-known/mcp/server-card.json)
- [API catalog](/.well-known/api-catalog) (RFC 9727)
- [Agentic resource catalog](/.well-known/ard.json)
- [API reference](/docs/api)
- [Pricing and API limits](/pricing.md)
- [llms.txt](/llms.txt)
- Every public page also has a Markdown version: append `.md` (the homepage is
  [/index.md](/index.md)) or send `Accept: text/markdown`.

## Contact

General questions: [hello@manifeststartup.com](mailto:hello@manifeststartup.com).