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Manifest Documentation 👋

Introduction​

Manifest is a backend designed for developers using AI coding tools like Cursor, Copilot or Windsurf.

If you’ve been using AI tools to build your app or website, you already know the truth: Generating a frontend is easy, but building the backend is still a mess.

With Manifest, you define your entire backend in a single YAML file. It can be generated and edited by both humans and LLMs.

Key advantages:

  • 🤖 Fits naturally into AI-assisted coding
  • 🔒 Easy to edit, validate and version.
  • 🗄️ Data, logic, storage, essentials features and an admin panel
  • 🧠 Reduce LLM token usage by up to 90%

Install Manifest​

Follow the steps below to install Manifest in your local machine.

Prerequisites​

Installation steps​

Run this command to create a Manifest project ready to use with Cursor IDE.

# NPM
npm create-manifest@latest my-project --cursor

# Yarn
yarn create manifest my-project --cursor

This will create a my-project folder with a Manifest backend configured for Cursor.

You can replace --cursor with another option if you're using a different AI tool;

  • --copilot if you're using GitHub Copilot
  • --windsurf for Windsurf
  • or remove it entirely if you're not using any AI coding tool

To start the Manifest backend, run the following command in the new project folder:

cd my-project
npm run start

You can now:
- See your Admin panel at http://localhost:1111 using the email admin@manifest.build and the password admin
- Use your REST API at http://localhost:1111/api

tip

If you already have a frontend app, you can run the npx add-manifest command from your project root to include it in your repo.

Note with PNMP​

As PNPM blocks postinstall scripts, we have to adapt the þackage.json. Add this to your package.json file before doing pnpm install:

  "pnpm": {
    "onlyBuiltDependencies": [
      "@nestjs/core",
      "sharp",
      "sqlite3"
    ]
  }