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Manifold

by Garume·★ 45·Score 45

Manifold is a .NET framework for defining operations once and exposing them via both CLI and MCP surfaces with high performance.

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Overview

Manifold provides a clean foundation for developers to build command-line interfaces and MCP servers from the same operation definitions. It uses source generation to create descriptors and invokers that can be composed into custom applications. The framework supports both static method and class-based operations with dependency injection capabilities. Its transport-agnostic design allows it to work with various MCP implementations while focusing on operation definition, binding, metadata, and fast dispatch.

Try asking AI

After installing, here are 5 things you can ask your AI assistant:

you:Building CLI tools with MCP capabilities in .NET applications
you:Creating dual-purpose command line and AI assistant tools
you:Generating high-performance MCP servers from existing .NET business logic
you:Does Manifold provide its own MCP transport host?
you:What's the performance advantage of Manifold over other CLI and MCP frameworks?

When to choose this

Choose Manifold when building .NET applications that need both CLI interfaces and MCP tool support, especially when performance is critical and you want to maintain a single operation definition.

When NOT to choose this

Avoid if you're not using .NET/C# or if you need transport-level features out-of-the-box since Man intentionally doesn't include transport implementations.

Tools this server exposes

1 tool extracted from the README
  • math_add

    Adds two integers.

Comparable tools

commanddotnetmcptoolkitsystem.commandlinemcpdotnet

Installation

Install the Manifold NuGet packages based on your needs:

# For CLI applications
<ItemGroup>
  <PackageReference Include="Manifold" Version="1.0.0" />
  <PackageReference Include="Manifold.Generators" Version="1.0.0" PrivateAssets="all" />
  <PackageReference Include="Manifold.Cli" Version="1.0.0" />
</ItemGroup>

# For MCP hosts
<ItemGroup>
  <PackageReference Include="Manifold" Version="1.0.0" />
  <PackageReference Include="Manifold.Generators" Version="1.0.0" PrivateAssets="all" />
  <PackageReference Include="Manifold.Mcp" Version="1.0.0" />
</ItemGroup>

For Claude Desktop integration, add the MCP server using:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "manifold": {
      "command": "dotnet",
      "args": ["run", "--project", "path/to/your/project.csproj"],
      "env": {
        "DOTNET_ENVIRONMENT": "Development"
      }
    }
  }
}

FAQ

Does Manifold provide its own MCP transport host?
No, Manifold is transport-agnostic. It provides tool metadata and execution helpers but requires you to implement or integrate with an MCP transport host.
What's the performance advantage of Manifold over other CLI and MCP frameworks?
Benchmarks show Manifold has significantly lower latency (20-30 ns) compared to alternatives like System.CommandLine (1700-2100 ns) and competitive performance against other MCP implementations.

On Hacker News

Recent discussion from the developer community.

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Last updated · Auto-generated from public README + GitHub signals.