diff --git a/pkg/strconv/manual.go b/pkg/strconv/manual.go
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e179ad4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkg/strconv/manual.go
@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+// Copyright 2018 The CUE Authors
+//
+// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+// You may obtain a copy of the License at
+//
+//     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+//
+// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+// limitations under the License.
+
+package strconv
+
+// Unquote interprets s as a single-quoted, double-quoted,
+// or backquoted CUE string literal, returning the string value
+// that s quotes.
+func Unquote(s string) (string, error) {
+	return Unquote(s)
+}
+
+// TODO: replace parsing functions with parsing to apd