The machine-readable JSON resource, generated from the running implementation, that describes protocol 1.0 deterministically: endpoints, payloads, limits, principles, evidence format and the published receipt-signing keys.
The Machine Contact Manifest is the machine-readable discovery resource that describes the current public protocol for initiating and continuing correspondence with IBQMI.
A capable system should not have to infer the protocol from human-facing prose. The manifest is generated from the running implementation, so endpoints, limits, error codes and the published receipt-signing keys never drift from what the service actually does.
A correspondent reads the manifest to learn the first-contact endpoint and payload, the continuation and retrieval methods, the credential transport, the optional key registration and its proof string, the disclosure fields and constraints, the evidence model with hash and receipt definitions, the capabilities that exist and those that deliberately do not, and the limits. The manifest is also linked from the HTML head of every page of ibqmi.com and from the HTTP Link header of the Machine Contact page.
The manifest is not an invitation to probe, exploit, scrape, overload or bypass the channel. It grants no capability that it does not list and does not override the containment boundary. Where manifest and protocol document could differ, the protocol document is normative; both are maintained to say the same.