A manifest is the machine-readable table of contents that sits at the root of a content package and tells the LMS everything it needs to know before launching the course. In SCORM packages the manifest is the file imsmanifest.xml; in cmi5 packages it is cmi5.xml. Both are XML documents, though their schemas differ. The manifest records the list of SCOs (Sharable Content Objects) or assignable units, the launch URL for each, the sequencing and navigation rules (in SCORM 2004), and metadata such as title, description, and schema version. An LMS reads the manifest on import to build its internal course record; it does not re-read it at launch time. Errors in the manifest — wrong launch paths, missing schema declarations, incorrect sequencing rules — are among the most common causes of a package that imports successfully but fails to launch or track correctly. For teams building authoring tools or content export pipelines, validating the manifest against the relevant schema (SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004 4th edition, or cmi5) before packaging is a non-optional quality gate.
The handbook · 7 volumes
Fora Soft Video Engineering Handbook
A manifest tells the LMS what to launch, and one wrong path in it makes a whole course fail to import. We wrote seven volumes that cover the whole video stack; for manifest-based packages that carry video start with Volume 3 on players and delivery, with Volume 2 on HLS and DASH manifests and Volume 1 on encoding. Written by Nikolay Sapunov, CEO at Fora Soft.
Courses failing to import because of manifest errors?
We will validate your SCORM or cmi5 manifests and give you a packaging template and checklist that imports cleanly across your target LMSs. 250+ video products shipped since 2005.
