Agents

^{Questions or issues? Contact us at api-support@manus.ai.} Agents are custom AI entities in Manus with their own identity (nickname and description) that can be customized for specific use cases. Each agent has a main task that serves as its persistent conversation thread. You can manage agents and interact with their tasks through the API. Every account comes with a default IM (Instant Messaging) agent for general-purpose conversations. You can access it directly using shortcuts without looking up its UUID.

Quick start: talk to an agent

Use the shortcut agent-default-main_task as task_id to directly interact with the IM agent’s main task — no need to look up UUIDs first:

cURL
Python

# Send a message to the IM agent
curl -X POST https://api.manus.ai/v2/task.sendMessage \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "x-manus-api-key: $MANUS_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "task_id": "agent-default-main_task",
    "message": { "content": "Summarize today's tech news" }
  }'

import requests

response = requests.post(
    "https://api.manus.ai/v2/task.sendMessage",
    headers={
        "Content-Type": "application/json",
        "x-manus-api-key": MANUS_API_KEY,
    },
    json={
        "task_id": "agent-default-main_task",
        "message": {"content": "Summarize today's tech news"},
    },
)
print(response.json())

Then poll for the agent’s response:

curl 'https://api.manus.ai/v2/task.listMessages?task_id=agent-default-main_task&order=desc&limit=5' \
  -H 'x-manus-api-key: $MANUS_API_KEY'

Shortcuts

The following shortcuts are available so you don’t need to look up UUIDs first:

Shortcut	Used as	Description
`agent-default-main_task`	`task_id`	The IM agent’s main task. Accepted anywhere a `task_id` is expected.
`agent-default`	`agent_id`	The IM agent. Use in task.list with `scope=agent_subtask`.

Managing agents

Use the agent.* endpoints to list, view, and update your agents:

Action	Endpoint
List all agents	agent.list
View agent details	agent.detail
Update nickname / description	agent.update

Agent subtasks

Agents can create subtasks during execution. To view an agent’s subtasks, use task.list with scope=agent_subtask:

curl 'https://api.manus.ai/v2/task.list?scope=agent_subtask&agent_id=agent-default' \
  -H 'x-manus-api-key: $MANUS_API_KEY'

Subtasks have task_type: "agent_subtask" in the response and can be interacted with like any other task — task.sendMessage, task.listMessages, task.stop, etc.

Getting Started

API Reference

Quick start: talk to an agent

Shortcuts

Managing agents

Agent subtasks

​Quick start: talk to an agent

​Shortcuts

​Managing agents

​Agent subtasks

Quick start: talk to an agent

Shortcuts

Managing agents

Agent subtasks