agent-task-protocol (ATP)

A portable, framework-agnostic protocol for durable agent tasks.

Problem

Every agent framework reinvents the same task primitives:

Framework	Task model
LangGraph	Stateful nodes + checkpointer
Temporal (OpenAI Agents SDK integration)	Workflow + activity replay
MCP	Task primitive (lifecycle gaps in 2026 roadmap)
OpenAI Agents SDK	Run + step records
Inngest	Step-function model
Multi-channel agent runtimes	Native task / flow registries (typically SQLite-backed)

There is no portable contract for what an agent task is: its lifecycle, its persistence shape, its retry/expiry semantics, its delivery context, its cost/time budgets, its approval gates. So memory, observability, audit, and federation across agent runtimes are all hand-rolled.

Why doesn't this already exist

• MCP shipped a Task primitive but the 2026 roadmap still has open SEPs on retry semantics and expiry policies (blog.modelcontextprotocol.io).
• OpenTelemetry GenAI semantic conventions standardize traces, not task state.
• A2A standardizes agent-to-agent task exchange, but not the local-runtime task model.

A small, focused spec that an agent framework can adopt to make its tasks portable is missing.

What this is

1. A JSON Schema for AgentTask — lifecycle, persistence, delivery, budgets, checkpoints.
2. A TypeScript reference implementation with:
   • In-memory store
   • SQLite store (via better-sqlite3 or Node native sqlite)
   • Validators (ajv)
   • CLI to create / list / transition / inspect tasks
3. Adapter interfaces so existing frameworks can wrap their native task model and emit ATP-compliant snapshots.

The protocol intentionally borrows from the most thought-out durable-task models in open-source personal-assistant codebases as of mid-2026 — revision-checked updates, opaque state bags, explicit delivery context, and human-checkpoint hooks.

Quick start

pnpm install
pnpm build
pnpm cli create --goal "draft Q2 retrospective" --owner "alice@example.com"
pnpm cli list
pnpm cli wait <flowId> --reason "needs HR approval"
pnpm cli resume <flowId>
pnpm cli finish <flowId> --result "delivered"

MVP scope

• AgentTask JSON Schema
• TypeScript types
• In-memory store
• SQLite store
• Validators
• CLI (create, list, get, wait, resume, finish, fail, cancel)
• Unit tests on the lifecycle state machine
• Adapter: LangGraph wrapper
• Adapter: MCP Task → ATP
• Adapter: OpenAI Agents SDK
• Cross-process subscriber (LISTEN/NOTIFY-style on SQLite or Redis)

Roadmap

Milestone	What
v0.1	Schema frozen, TS ref impl, in-memory + SQLite, CLI
v0.2	Two adapters (LangGraph + MCP)
v0.3	Python parity (pip install agent-task-protocol)
v0.4	Streaming subscribers (cross-process)
v1.0	RFC published, schema versioned

References

• Research paper §5 (Deep Dive — Task Handling)
• Research paper §10.1 #1 (proposed standards)
• Companion appendix: appendix-task-handling.md

License

Apache-2.0 © Vlad Bordei