Concepts

Understanding Manifest's data model.

Overview

Manifest tracks features over the long term as living documentation rather than ephemeral tasks. Features form a tree that mirrors your product's architecture, and AI agents use it to understand what to build and to record what they've done.

Features

A feature describes what your system does. Most features are user-facing (Password Reset, OAuth Login, Webhooks), but non-product features work too (Quality Documentation, Code Coverage, Quick Rollback).

AI coding agents are good at breaking down features into tasks and organizing their own sub-agents for implementation. You define the feature, they figure out the steps.

Feature details can be anything, but we recommend:

• User story: Clarifies who benefits and why, helping agents understand intent
• Acceptance criteria: Defines "done" for both humans reviewing and agents implementing
• Technical notes: Constraints and context that prevent agents from making wrong assumptions

Feature tree

Features form a hierarchy mirroring your product's architecture:

MyProject
├── ● Authentication
│   ├── ● Password Login
│   ├── ○ OAuth Integration
│   └── ◇ Two-Factor Auth
└── ◇ Webhooks

Leaf features can be implemented directly. Parent features with children are called feature sets.

Feature sets

Feature sets are features that contain other features. They organize related functionality into logical groups:

◇ Authentication          ← Feature set (has children)
├── ◇ Password Login      ← Leaf feature
├── ◇ OAuth Integration   ← Leaf feature
└── ◇ Two-Factor Auth     ← Leaf feature

Use feature sets to:

• Group related features (e.g., all auth features under "Authentication")
• Mirror your codebase architecture
• Create navigation hierarchy in the feature tree

Feature sets can be nested. A feature set's state reflects its children—it's complete when all children are implemented.

Feature states

Archiving and deleting

Manifest uses a two-step deletion flow to prevent accidents:

1. Archive: Soft-deletes the feature. Archived features are hidden from normal views but can be restored.
2. Delete permanently: Removes the feature from the database entirely. This cannot be undone.

To delete a feature, first archive it, then delete it. This gives you a chance to recover if you archive something by mistake.

Feature history

Every feature has an append-only history log (like git log for your product). When an agent completes work, it records a summary and links to commits.

Versions

Versions group features into release milestones. Manifest organizes versions into Now (current focus), Next (queued up), and Later (backlog).

See Product versions for the full workflow.