diff --git a/ant-dev/src/ant_dev/cli.py b/ant-dev/src/ant_dev/cli.py
index 6d436dc..2b02a40 100644
--- a/ant-dev/src/ant_dev/cli.py
+++ b/ant-dev/src/ant_dev/cli.py
@@ -24,6 +24,11 @@ def main(argv: list[str] | None = None) -> None:
                    help="Path to ant-node repo")
     p.add_argument("--no-build", action="store_true", help="Skip build (use existing binaries)")
     p.add_argument("--enable-evm", action="store_true", help="Enable EVM payment enforcement")
+    # `default` (25 nodes) reproducibly hits the manifest-wait timeout on
+    # cold-cache fresh starts (#73). `small` (10 nodes) is plenty for SDK
+    # development and starts in seconds.
+    p.add_argument("--preset", default="small", choices=["small", "default", "large"],
+                   help="ant-devnet size preset (default: small)")
 
     # ant dev stop
     dev_sub.add_parser("stop", help="Tear down all local processes")
diff --git a/ant-dev/src/ant_dev/cmd_start.py b/ant-dev/src/ant_dev/cmd_start.py
index 5870b2c..0c641a5 100644
--- a/ant-dev/src/ant_dev/cmd_start.py
+++ b/ant-dev/src/ant_dev/cmd_start.py
@@ -86,7 +86,7 @@ def run(args) -> None:
 
     devnet_cmd = [
         "cargo", "run", "--release", "--bin", "ant-devnet", "--",
-        "--preset", "default",
+        "--preset", args.preset,
         "--enable-evm",
         "--manifest", str(DEVNET_MANIFEST),
     ]