If you take a look at the manifest itself, the hash(es) of its contents are listed as entries in the data structure. You can retrieve the verbatim data of a hash by using the `bzz-raw` scheme, for example: $ echo foo > foo.txt $ swarm up foo.txt f3f1f9d14ac8413d928744cad75e5620661446dcfe7108cb269305af41b164c2 $ curl -X GET http://localhost:8500/bzz-raw:/f3f1f9d14ac8413d928744cad75e5620661446dcfe7108cb269305af41b164c2/ { "entries": [ { "hash": "01c9bc7199ce023fea5c28e07a81c2d61ba4a8f9bbed68a6eafab8ec8bbbfe0a", "contentType": "text/plain; charset=utf-8", "mode": 420, "size": 4, "mod_time": "2019-01-19T14:43:21-05:00" } ] } $ curl -X GET http://localhost:8500/bzz-raw:/01c9bc7199ce023fea5c28e07a81c2d61ba4a8f9bbed68a6eafab8ec8bbbfe0a/ foo You can also upload without creating a manifest. In that case the returned hash is a reference to the data itself: $ echo bar > bar.txt $ swarm --manifest=false up bar.txt 211a9fade237e05307c86135af61d3d09f82324117bcac41d7dc91da53901018 $ curl -X GET http://localhost:8500/bzz-raw:/211a9fade237e05307c86135af61d3d09f82324117bcac41d7dc91da53901018/ bar Note that the upload actions in these two cases are actually equivalent to: $ curl -X POST http://localhost:8500/bzz:/ --data @foo.txt $ curl -X POST http://localhost:8500/bzz-raw:/ --data-binary @bar.txt