Project summary

Manifold has quite a few barriers surrounding the API. I hope to fix them!

What are this project's goals and how will you achieve them?

Project 1: Improving the API

Currently, many power users build their own specialized tools, such as Isaac's search tool, to improve the Manifold experience. However, many features of the Manifold API are undocumented, putting new traders at a disadvantage. I hope to level the playing field by making the API more accessible to all by improving the API infrastructure for end users: updating the API docs, updating API wrapper libraries with new features, and possibly exposing more API endpoints. In addition, some power users are known to query Supabase directly to reduce API lag; I will also make that accessible to everyone in some manner.

Project 2: Manifold trading bot guide

Many commonly used APIs have a "getting started" section, and beginner-friendly examples to accompany the documentation. Unfortunately, Manifold is missing out on many potential API users and bots. I will create a getting started page and a guide on the Manifold API docs to encourage more new API users and bots. The getting started page should be pretty simple, and I hope to model the guide off something like this discord.js guide. I will also provide technical support for the guide in the discord.

How will this funding be used?

My hourly rate for a real job is roughly $40 an hour, however I will pay myself $20 an hour for this project. The opportunity costs for this project include working on scientific research projects, which have quite a significant importance to me.

Who is on your team and what's your track record on similar projects?

The team is just me, for now. Currently, I am a computer science student, and I have been programming for around 8 years now. In my free time, I have won prizes from hackathons. Last summer, I was an intern at a large publicly traded tech company, and successfully automated many previously manual tests using python.

I have sufficiently experience with the Manifold API. My bot has been working for over a month, and I constantly implement new trading features.

What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails? (premortem)

1. I get distracted and run out of time. This is the most likely reason for failure. I am a busy student, but can pick it back up during summers and breaks. I can dedicate roughly 10-20 hours a week to this, depending on my schedule.

2. I am not familiar enough with the Manifold codebase. I have some experience with React, but not a lot. I am confident I can familiarize myself, given sufficient time.

3. Manifold breaks its API, charges higher API trading fees, or paywalls the API. The API paywall has been discussed in this Notion post. I do not think this scenario is a high priority or possibility for Manifold, as Manifold is in the growth phase of a startup. However, there is a larger possibility of Manifold restricting access to Supabase due to costs, in which case that portion of project 1 will not be carried out.

What other funding are you or your project getting?

None

Update

I will only pursue project 2, as Sinclair is working on major API changes.