The manifests are currently a primary source of loose coupling in Barretenberg. Resolving this issue would give a more flexible transcript (e.g., simplifying the tests that now require a manifest (sometimes a partial one)) and would follow the paradigm of having "a single source of information". Namely, the prover's algorithm and the verifier's algorithm will be specified in code, and a manifest recording their interactions will be documented in a test. In-order execution of the algorithms will be enforced via the properties of the hash function that is used to generate the challenges; out-of-order execution will lead to differing challenges.
The manifests are currently a primary source of loose coupling in Barretenberg. Resolving this issue would give a more flexible transcript (e.g., simplifying the tests that now require a manifest (sometimes a partial one)) and would follow the paradigm of having "a single source of information". Namely, the prover's algorithm and the verifier's algorithm will be specified in code, and a manifest recording their interactions will be documented in a test. In-order execution of the algorithms will be enforced via the properties of the hash function that is used to generate the challenges; out-of-order execution will lead to differing challenges.