3.2 What happens next depends on Pro

With the free core alone, ingest is synchronous. Living Manual extracts the PDF text, builds the section tree from the document’s own structure, and finishes inside the same request. When the page comes back, the manual is ready. There is no API call and no cost. With Living Manual Pro active and an API key set, the AI pipeline takes over. Ingest becomes a stepped background job with a progress indicator on the knowledge base row, because AI ingest of a real manual takes minutes rather than seconds. It runs two passes over the extracted text: one that builds the browsable sections, and one that builds a knowledge graph the docent uses to find answers. The manual’s status shows its progress, and the job can be resumed if it is interrupted.