Manifest Setup

Follow these steps in order. Do not skip ahead.

Use this skill when

• User wants to set up observability or telemetry for their agent
• User wants to connect their agent to Manifest for monitoring
• User needs to configure a Manifest API key or custom endpoint
• User is troubleshooting Manifest plugin connection issues
• User wants to verify the Manifest plugin is running

Do not use this skill when

• User needs general observability design (use observability-engineer instead)
• User wants to build custom dashboards or alerting rules
• User is not using the Manifest platform

Instructions

Step 1 — Stop the gateway

Stop the gateway first to avoid hot-reload issues during configuration.

claude gateway stop

Step 2 — Install the plugin

claude plugins install manifest

If it fails, check that the CLI is installed and available in the PATH.

Step 3 — Get an API key

Ask the user:

To connect your agent, you need a Manifest API key. Here's how to get one:

1. Go to https://app.manifest.build and create an account (or sign in)
2. Once logged in, click "Connect Agent" to create a new agent
3. Copy the API key that starts with mnfst_
4. Paste it here

Wait for a key starting with mnfst_. If the key doesn't match, tell the user the format looks incorrect and ask them to try again.

Step 4 — Configure the plugin

claude config set plugins.entries.manifest.config.apiKey "USER_API_KEY"

Replace USER_API_KEY with the actual key the user provided.

Ask the user if they have a custom endpoint. If not, the default (https://app.manifest.build/api/v1/otlp) is used automatically. If they do:

claude config set plugins.entries.manifest.config.endpoint "USER_ENDPOINT"

Step 5 — Start the gateway

claude gateway install

Step 6 — Verify

Wait 3 seconds for the gateway to fully start, then check the logs:

grep "manifest" ~/.claude/logs/gateway.log | tail -5

Look for:

[manifest] Observability pipeline active

If it appears, tell the user setup is complete. If not, check the error messages and troubleshoot.

Safety

• Never log or echo the API key in plain text after configuration
• Verify the key format (mnfst_ prefix) before writing to config

Troubleshooting

Error	Fix
Missing apiKey	Re-run step 4
Invalid apiKey format	The key must start with mnfst_
Connection refused	The endpoint is unreachable. Check the URL or ask if they self-host
Duplicate OTel registration	Disable the conflicting built-in plugin: claude plugins disable diagnostics-otel

Examples

Example 1: Basic setup

Use @manifest to set up observability for my agent.

Example 2: Custom endpoint

Use @manifest to connect my agent to my self-hosted Manifest instance at https://manifest.internal.company.com/api/v1/otlp

Best Practices

• Always stop the gateway before making configuration changes
• The default endpoint works for most users — only change it if self-hosting
• API keys always start with mnfst_ — any other format is invalid
• Check gateway logs first when debugging any plugin issue