A manifest turns a folder of documents into an application surface. The useful question is not whether the idea sounds persuasive. It is whether it helps someone understand the work, make a decision, or complete a task with less friction.
What is happening
Without a route record, any file that happens to exist can become public. Publication status and canonical paths remain implicit.
This tends to become visible at the boundary between the organization and the person encountering it for the first time. Internal familiarity hides effort that remains obvious to a customer, reader, applicant, or collaborator.
A practical response
List each public route, source document, compatibility path, and state in one checked source. Let validation compare the manifest with the files.
The aim is a smaller, clearer system: one source for the record, one visible hierarchy, and one next action that behaves as expected. That approach improves the immediate page and makes later application or database work easier to add without rebuilding the public surface.