A C2PA Manifest is the technical data structure that stores provenance information for a digital asset.
It can include information about the asset, the tool that created or modified it, declared actions, ingredients, metadata assertions, content bindings and a cryptographic signature. In user-facing language, a C2PA Manifest is commonly presented as a Content Credential.
What is inside a C2PA Manifest?
A C2PA Manifest usually contains several important elements:
- assertions, which describe provenance information such as actions, ingredients or metadata;
- a claim, which binds selected assertions together;
- content bindings, which connect the manifest to the specific asset;
- a claim signature, which protects the manifest and supports verification;
- certificate information, which helps validators evaluate who signed the manifest.
The manifest is designed to be verifiable. A validator can check whether the media still matches the manifest, whether the manifest data was altered, and whether the signature is valid.
Why the manifest matters
The C2PA Manifest is the part that makes Content Credentials useful for technical verification.
Without a manifest, a user may only have normal metadata, which can often be edited or removed without strong integrity protection. With a C2PA Manifest, provenance data can be cryptographically bound to the asset, making unauthorized changes detectable during verification.
Manifest validation in ProvSeal
ProvSeal reads and validates C2PA manifests directly in Chrome. When a user verifies a file or scans a page, the extension checks whether C2PA evidence is present and displays a clear status such as Trusted, Signed but untrusted, Invalid or No credentials.
The detailed report helps technical users inspect manifest data, signature details, certificate information and exportable JSON. Learn more in How it works.
Manifest vs Content Credential
“C2PA Manifest” is the technical term. “Content Credential” is the more user-friendly term.
In practice, when someone says that an image has Content Credentials, it usually means that the asset contains or references a C2PA Manifest that can be inspected by a compatible tool.