The manifest is the single document that says what is being taped out and what was checked. Every argument at a tapeout review is really an argument about the manifest: a version nobody recorded, a check nobody ran, a result attached to the wrong revision. This topic builds the NanoSoC manifest from scratch: what rows it holds, how the baseline is frozen so it cannot drift, how a second engineer reproduces it, and the script that checks it every night. Its one job is the list and its integrity; what the waivers inside it mean is the next topic.

Suggested order: top to bottom. Contents first, because the freeze only makes sense once you know what is frozen; then the checker, which enforces both. The waiver topic next door explains the rows this topic treats as entries.