Manifesto

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Developer Tooling ​

Bootstrap projects, wire editors, give agents current Manifesto context, and inspect the same schema through read-only Studio projections.

Manifesto's current DX stack is intentionally split into a small set of packages around the runtime.

NeedPackageWhat It Gives You
Start or retrofit a repo@manifesto-ai/cliinit, integrate, setup, doctor, scaffold
Author MEL with editor support@manifesto-ai/mel-lspdiagnostics, completion, hover, rename, references, schema introspection
Load Manifesto guidance into AI tools@manifesto-ai/skillsexplicit installers for Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, and Windsurf
Inspect a schema from the terminal@manifesto-ai/studio-clifindings, graph, snapshot, trace, lineage, governance, transition graphs
Build dashboards or agent endpoints@manifesto-ai/studio-core, @manifesto-ai/studio-mcpstable JSON projections and MCP transport
  1. Use @manifesto-ai/cli to declare runtime and tooling intent in manifesto.config.*.
  2. Run @manifesto-ai/mel-lsp in the editor so MEL authoring stays schema-aware.
  3. Install @manifesto-ai/skills only for the AI tools your team actually uses.
  4. Read Runtime Tooling Surface before building custom Studio, agent, or adapter workflows on the public runtime.
  5. Reach for @manifesto-ai/studio-cli locally and @manifesto-ai/studio-mcp when an agent or remote client needs read-only inspection tools.

Typical Workflows ​

Bootstrap a New App ​

bash
manifesto init --runtime base --integration vite --codegen wire --skills codex
manifesto doctor

That flow installs the runtime packages, patches the selected integration surface, writes manifesto.config.*, and validates that declared intent still matches the repo.

Switch --runtime to lineage or gov only when the project already needs approval, continuity, audit history, or restore.

Give an AI Tool Current Manifesto Context ​

bash
pnpm add -D @manifesto-ai/skills
pnpm exec manifesto-skills install-codex

If you prefer to stay inside the CLI flow, manifesto setup skills codex can drive the Codex setup path from the repo configuration.

Inspect a Domain Locally ​

bash
studio-cli analyze path/to/domain.mel
studio-cli snapshot path/to/domain.mel --snapshot path/to/canonical-snapshot.json
studio-cli governance path/to/domain.mel --governance path/to/governance.json

Use this path when one developer or CI job wants findings, action availability, snapshot inspection, trace replay, lineage state, or governance state without building a custom UI.

Expose Inspection Tools to an Agent ​

bash
studio-mcp --transport stdio --mel path/to/domain.mel

Switch to HTTP transport when the client cannot spawn a local subprocess:

bash
studio-mcp --transport http --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8787 --endpoint /mcp --mel path/to/domain.mel

Put HTTPS in front of the HTTP transport when a remote connector product needs a public MCP endpoint.

Important Boundaries ​

  • Studio snapshot inspection expects full internal snapshots from runtime.inspect.canonicalSnapshot(), not the app-facing result of snapshot().
  • Runtime-aware tools should use action preview() for current-snapshot dry-runs and @manifesto-ai/sdk/extensions for arbitrary full internal snapshots or lower-level typed-intent compatibility seams.
  • @manifesto-ai/skills does not auto-install from postinstall; setup is always explicit.
  • @manifesto-ai/studio-core is read-only and renderer-neutral. It analyzes a bundle and returns JSON projections; it does not execute effects or mutate runtime state.

If the project later needs reviewable writes, audit history, or restore, step out of the tooling track and read When You Need Approval or History first.

See Also ​