Manus SOP

Appearance

Test ​

Status: NEEDS-ACCOUNT ​

Manus is a cloud-hosted AI agent platform at manus.im. There is no installable SDK, pip package, or npm module. Access requires account signup. As of 2026, registration is invite-based.

No local installation is possible. No commands can be run without an account and API key.

What is required ​

  • A Manus account (request access at manus.im)
  • An API key provisioned for API access (distinct from web UI access)
  • The MANUS_API_KEY environment variable set

Smoke test: verify API key and connectivity ​

Once you have an account and API key, run the following read-only calls. No task credits are consumed by these checks.

Test 1: API key connectivity ​

bash
curl -s https://api.manus.ai/v2/task.list \
  -H "x-manus-api-key: $MANUS_API_KEY"

Expected success output:

json
{
  "ok": true,
  "request_id": "req_abc123",
  "data": {
    "tasks": [],
    "next_cursor": null
  }
}

An empty tasks array is a valid success result. If you have existing tasks, the array will contain them.

Test 2: Invalid key detection ​

bash
curl -s https://api.manus.ai/v2/task.list \
  -H "x-manus-api-key: invalid_key_test"

Expected output (confirms error handling works):

json
{
  "ok": false,
  "request_id": "req_xyz789",
  "error": {
    "code": "permission_denied",
    "message": "Invalid or missing API key"
  }
}

Test 3: Create a minimal task (consumes credits) ​

Only run this if you want to verify end-to-end task execution:

bash
curl -s -X POST https://api.manus.ai/v2/task.create \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "x-manus-api-key: $MANUS_API_KEY" \
  -d '{"message": {"content": "Say hello and stop."}}'

Expected success output:

json
{
  "ok": true,
  "request_id": "req_...",
  "data": {
    "task_id": "task_...",
    "agent_status": "running"
  }
}

A task_id in the response and "ok": true confirms the task was accepted. Poll with task.listMessages until agent_status is "stopped".

Check credit balance ​

bash
curl -s https://api.manus.ai/v2/usage.availableCredits \
  -H "x-manus-api-key: $MANUS_API_KEY"

Expected output:

json
{
  "ok": true,
  "request_id": "req_...",
  "data": {
    "available_credits": 1250
  }
}

Failure reference ​

SymptomLikely cause
"code": "permission_denied"API key missing, wrong, or not yet active
"code": "rate_limited"Exceeded per-minute limit; back off and retry
HTTP 404Wrong endpoint path; confirm you are hitting /v2/ not /v1/
Connection refusedNetwork issue or API key not provisioned for API access

Classification ​

NEEDS-ACCOUNT - cloud agent, web UI only. No local installation path exists. All functionality requires a Manus account and valid API key.