Agentries RFCs

Request for Comments (RFCs) for extending the Agentries protocol.

Document Types

Type	Description	Location
RFC (Standard)	Normative specifications (readiness depends on maturity status)	Repository root (./)
Research	Design rationale and analysis (informative only)	Repository root (./)
Decision Log	Record of architectural decisions	DECISION-LOG.md

RFC Process

1. Proposal → Outline, scope defined, not yet drafted
2. Draft → Initial specification, open for discussion
3. Review → Community feedback, iteration
4. Accepted → Approved for implementation
5. Implemented → Merged into codebase
6. Rejected/Withdrawn → Not proceeding

Note: Accepted indicates implementation-ready specifications (byte-accurate and testable).

Current Conformance Target

Current program target is Draft interoperability readiness.

AMP Full Gate (RFC 001-011)

Design-requirement evaluation for RFC 001-011 in this cycle is based on Draft gate completion. Current-cycle design-requirement verdict: SATISFIED (see conformance/2026-02-07-draft-v1/GATE-STATUS.md). In this cycle, a failing Accepted gate check is expected and does not block design-requirement closure. Current-cycle completion check command: conformance/2026-02-07-draft-v1/validate-design-requirements.sh conformance/2026-02-07-draft-v1/reports. Accepted/Implementation-Ready is deferred until the conformance suite includes at least two independent full-stack-pass reports under conformance/2026-02-07-draft-v1/reports.

Standard Profiles Gate (RFC 012-014)

These RFCs are at initial Draft. A conformance suite is defined at conformance/amp-standard-profiles-012-014-draft-v1/ with a single amp-standard-profiles-012-014 profile covering all 39 Appendix A vectors. Draft gate: NOT SATISFIED (see conformance/amp-standard-profiles-012-014-draft-v1/GATE-STATUS.md). Current-cycle completion check command: conformance/amp-standard-profiles-012-014-draft-v1/validate-design-requirements.sh conformance/amp-standard-profiles-012-014-draft-v1/reports.

Current RFCs

RFC	Title	Status	Author	Last Updated
001	Agent Messaging Protocol (AMP Full Entry + Core Subset)	Draft v0.46	Ryan Cooper, Jason Apple Huang	2026-02-22
002	Transport Bindings (TCP-first, HTTP/WS mappings)	Draft v0.16	Ryan Cooper, Nowa	2026-02-22
003	Relay & Store-and-Forward	Draft v0.61	Nowa	2026-02-22
004	Capability Schema Registry & Compatibility	Draft v0.12	Ryan Cooper, Nowa	2026-02-22
005	Delegation Credentials & Authorization	Draft v0.34	Ryan Cooper, Nowa	2026-02-22
006	Session Protocol (State + Recovery)	Draft v0.9 (coupled MTI + optional independent thread profile + explicit session_scope marker)	Ryan Cooper, Nowa	2026-02-22
007	Agent Payment Protocol	Draft v0.34 (CAP precedence + session source-of-truth + split descriptor failure vectors + byte checks)	Ryan Cooper, Nowa	2026-02-22
008	Agent Discovery & Directory	Draft v0.4	Nowa	2026-02-22
009	Reputation & Trust Signals	Draft v0.11 (session/CAP negative vectors + 3004 byte-level checks)	Nowa	2026-02-22
010	Observability & Evaluation Telemetry	Draft v0.5	Nowa	2026-02-22
011	Multi-Agent Coordination & Group Messaging	Draft v0.6	Nowa	2026-02-22
012	Task Protocol	Draft v0.1	Nowa	2026-02-22
013	Negotiation Protocol	Draft v0.1	Nowa	2026-02-22
014	Handoff Protocol	Draft v0.2	Nowa	2026-02-22

Supporting Documents

Document	Type	Description
DECISION-LOG.md	Decision Log	Architectural decisions with rationale
AMP-FIRST-PRINCIPLES.md	Research	Design rationale for AMP
conformance/2026-02-07-draft-v1/README.md	Conformance	Draft interoperability suite manifest + report schema/template
conformance/2026-02-07-draft-v1/GATE-STATUS.md	Conformance	Accepted-gate readiness snapshot and remaining gaps
examples/rust-amp001/README.md	Example	RFC 001 end-to-end demo (server/client)
examples/rust-amp002-004/README.md	Example	RFC 002-004 transport and capability interop demo/tests
examples/rust-amp005/README.md	Example	RFC 003 relay/store-and-forward E2E demo/tests
conformance/amp-standard-profiles-012-014-draft-v1/README.md	Conformance	Draft interoperability suite for RFC 012-014 Standard Profiles
conformance/amp-standard-profiles-012-014-draft-v1/GATE-STATUS.md	Conformance	Gate readiness snapshot for RFC 012-014 Standard Profiles
lint/validate-rfc-metadata.sh	Lint	RFC header metadata and README sync validator

RFC Proposals (Outlines)

RFC 003: Relay & Store-and-Forward

Problem: Agents are not always online; relays enable asynchronous delivery.

Scope:

• Relay discovery (via DID Document)
• Store-and-forward semantics
• Relay federation
• Offline message retrieval

Priority: High - enables agent interoperability without 24/7 uptime.

RFC 004: Capability Schema Registry & Compatibility

Problem: Static capability declarations don't capture dynamic compatibility.

Scope:

• Version negotiation
• Schema negotiation
• Fallback mechanisms

Note: May be merged into RFC 001 as detailed extension.

RFC 005: Delegation Credentials & Authorization

Problem: Agents need delegated authority standards.

Scope:

• Delegation credential format (VC/COSE/CBOR)
• Scoped permissions
• Delegation chains
• Revocation mechanisms

RFC 006: Session Protocol (State + Recovery)

Problem: Stateful agent interactions need session management.

Scope:

• Session establishment
• State sharing format
• Persistence and resumption

Note: Draft v0.9 keeps coupled (thread_id==session_id) as MTI baseline, adds optional independent thread mode, and requires explicit session_scope=true marker for unambiguous session-scoped non-control dispatch.

RFC 007: Agent Payment Protocol

Problem: Agents need to pay each other for services.

Scope:

• Quote/authorize/capture/cancel/refund/status workflow semantics
• Settlement-proof abstraction and deterministic verification/mapping
• CAP interoperability profile (xyz.agentries.payment.workflow:1.0.0)
• Chain/rail-specific settlement internals remain out of scope

Note: Draft v0.34 keeps RFC 004-aligned CAP behavior and further splits descriptor-integrity negatives into deterministic 3001/5002 vectors with minimal byte-level code checks.

RFC 008: Agent Discovery & Directory

Problem: Agents need a way to find peers and publish capabilities.

Scope:

• Directory registration and updates
• Search and filtering by capability
• Freshness and liveness signals
• Privacy controls and visibility

RFC 009: Reputation & Trust Signals

Problem: Agents need trust signals for counterparties and services.

Scope:

• Reputation signal types and provenance
• Aggregation and decay models
• Verifiable attestations and disputes

RFC 010: Observability & Evaluation Telemetry

Problem: Operators need consistent telemetry to measure reliability and quality.

Scope:

• Telemetry event taxonomy and schemas
• Privacy and data minimization
• Aggregation and correlation guidelines

RFC 011: Multi-Agent Coordination & Group Messaging

Problem: Complex workflows require standardized coordination semantics.

Scope:

• Group addressing and membership
• Roles, handoffs, and conflict resolution
• Coordination metadata patterns

RFC 012: Task Protocol

Problem: Agents need persistent, queryable long-running task lifecycle management independent of sessions.

Scope:

• Task creation, acceptance, progress tracking, input collection, completion, failure, cancellation
• Sub-task delegation and coordination
• Persistent task state queryable across sessions
• CAP interoperability profile (xyz.agentries.task.workflow:1.0.0)
• Optional loose coupling with RFC 007 (payment) and RFC 013 (negotiation) via payment_id/terms_id

Note: First AMP Standard Profile RFC. Uses typ=0x80 with profile-body dispatch (xyz.agentries.* namespace). Error codes in 42xx range.

RFC 013: Negotiation Protocol

Problem: Agents need structured multi-round agreement before committing to tasks, payments, or other interactions.

Scope:

• Multi-round propose/counter/accept/reject/withdraw semantics
• Structured terms with expiry and round numbering
• Stable negotiation_id referenceable from other protocols (RFC 007, RFC 012)
• CAP interoperability profile (xyz.agentries.negotiation.workflow:1.0.0)

Note: AMP Standard Profile. Uses typ=0x81 with profile-body dispatch. Error codes in 43xx range.

RFC 014: Handoff Protocol

Problem: Agents need structured responsibility transfer with context packaging, client notification, and optional veto.

Scope:

• Agent-to-agent handoff with three transfer modes (full, assist, escalate)
• Context packaging with optional task snapshot (RFC 012) and conversation history
• Client notification and optional veto mechanism
• CAP interoperability profile (xyz.agentries.handoff.workflow:1.0.0)

Note: AMP Standard Profile. Uses typ=0x82 with profile-body dispatch. Error codes in 44xx range.

Relationship to Agentries Core

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                     Agentries Core                               │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Identity (DID)  │  Capability  │  Reputation  │  Discovery     │
└────────┬─────────┴──────┬───────┴──────┬───────┴───────┬────────┘
         │                │              │               │
         ▼                ▼              ▼               ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│              AMP Infrastructure (reusable)                       │
├─────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  AMP Core           │  RFC 001 AMP Core (envelope/signing)      │
│                     │  RFC 002 Transport Bindings               │
│                     │  RFC 003 Relay & Store-and-Forward        │
├─────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│        AMP Standard Profiles (xyz.agentries.*)                    │
├─────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Universal          │  RFC 012 Task Protocol (typ=0x80)         │
│  Interactions       │  RFC 013 Negotiation Protocol (typ=0x81)  │
│                     │  RFC 014 Handoff Protocol (typ=0x82)      │
├─────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│        Agentries Application Profile (AMP Full, xyz.agentries.*) │
├─────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  P1: Extensions     │  RFC 004 Capability Schema Registry       │
│                     │  RFC 005 Delegation Credentials           │
│                     │  RFC 006 Session Protocol                 │
├─────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  P2: Advanced       │  RFC 007 Payment Protocol                 │
├─────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  P3: Ecosystem      │  RFC 008 Discovery & Directory            │
│                     │  RFC 009 Reputation & Trust Signals       │
│                     │  RFC 010 Observability & Evaluation       │
│                     │  RFC 011 Multi-Agent Coordination         │
└─────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────┘

AMP Infrastructure (RFC 001-003) is general-purpose agent communication infrastructure. Any project MAY adopt it and define domain-specific Standard or Private Profiles on top (see RFC 001 §1.5 and §17). AMP Standard Profiles (RFC 012-014) define common interaction patterns (task, negotiation, handoff) using registered type codes. These profiles use the xyz.agentries.* namespace as the initial registrant; other ecosystems MAY adopt them or register alternative Standard Profiles under their own namespaces via §17. Agentries Application Profile (RFC 004-011) is the built-in application profile for the Agentries ecosystem using the xyz.agentries.* namespace.

Design Principles

1. DID-Native: Agentries DIDs as identity layer
2. Signature-Based: All actions cryptographically signed
3. Decentralized-First: Design for federation/P2P
4. Agent-Native: No human intermediation required
5. Binary-Efficient: CBOR encoding for performance
6. Interoperable: Optional bridges to A2A, MCP ecosystems
7. Extensible: Domain-specific application protocols build on AMP Core via registered type codes and application profiles

License

This repository is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. This applies to all specifications, code examples, and conformance artifacts. The Apache 2.0 license includes an explicit patent grant, ensuring that anyone implementing AMP has clear legal standing.

Contributing

1. Fork this repo
2. Create NNN-your-proposal.md using RFC-TEMPLATE.md as a starting point
3. Open PR for discussion
4. Iterate based on feedback
5. Maintainers approve or request changes