ZAP - Zero-Copy App Proto

High-performance Cap'n Proto RPC for AI agent communication.

ZAP provides a unified protocol for connecting to and aggregating MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers, enabling efficient tool calling, resource access, and prompt management for AI agents.

Features

• Zero-copy Serialization: Cap'n Proto for minimal overhead
• Multi-transport: Unix sockets, TCP, WebSocket, HTTP
• MCP Gateway: Aggregate multiple MCP servers behind a single endpoint
• Cross-language: Rust, Python, TypeScript implementations
• High Performance: Designed for AI workloads with low latency

Packages

Package	Language	Install
hanzo-zap	Rust	cargo add hanzo-zap
hanzo-zap	Python	pip install hanzo-zap
@hanzo/zap	TypeScript	npm install @hanzo/zap

Quick Start

Rust

use zap::{Client, Gateway, Config};

// Connect to a ZAP gateway
let client = Client::connect("zap://localhost:9999").await?;

// List available tools
let tools = client.list_tools().await?;

// Call a tool
let result = client.call_tool("search", json!({"query": "hello"})).await?;

Python

from hanzo_zap import Client, Gateway

# Connect to a ZAP gateway
client = await Client.connect("zap://localhost:9999")

# List available tools
tools = await client.list_tools()

# Call a tool
result = await client.call_tool("search", {"query": "hello"})

TypeScript

import { Client, Gateway } from '@hanzo/zap';

// Connect to a ZAP gateway
const client = await Client.connect('zap://localhost:9999');

// List available tools
const tools = await client.listTools();

// Call a tool
const result = await client.callTool('search', { query: 'hello' });

CLI Tools

zap - Command Line Client

# List tools from a gateway
zap tools list

# Call a tool
zap call search --query "hello world"

# List resources
zap resources list

# Read a resource
zap read file:///path/to/file

zapd - Gateway Daemon

# Start gateway with config file
zapd --config /etc/zap/config.toml

# Start with inline servers
zapd --server "stdio://npx @modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem"

Configuration

Create a zap.toml configuration file:

[gateway]
listen = "0.0.0.0"
port = 9999
log_level = "info"

[[servers]]
name = "filesystem"
transport = "stdio"
command = "npx"
args = ["@modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem", "/path/to/files"]

[[servers]]
name = "database"
transport = "http"
url = "http://localhost:8080/mcp"

[[servers]]
name = "search"
transport = "websocket"
url = "ws://localhost:9000/ws"

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                        AI Client                            │
│                    (Claude, GPT, etc.)                      │
└──────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────┘
                           │
                           │ ZAP Protocol (Cap'n Proto RPC)
                           │
                           ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                      ZAP Gateway                            │
│                                                             │
│  ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐  │
│  │                  Server Registry                      │  │
│  │  ┌─────────┐  ┌─────────┐  ┌─────────┐  ┌─────────┐  │  │
│  │  │Server A │  │Server B │  │Server C │  │Server D │  │  │
│  │  └────┬────┘  └────┬────┘  └────┬────┘  └────┬────┘  │  │
│  └───────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼───────┘  │
│          │            │            │            │          │
└──────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼──────────┘
           │            │            │            │
           ▼            ▼            ▼            ▼
      ┌────────┐   ┌────────┐   ┌────────┐   ┌────────┐
      │ stdio  │   │  HTTP  │   │  WS    │   │ Unix   │
      │ MCP    │   │  MCP   │   │  MCP   │   │ Socket │
      │ Server │   │ Server │   │ Server │   │ Server │
      └────────┘   └────────┘   └────────┘   └────────┘

Protocol

ZAP uses Cap'n Proto for efficient serialization and RPC:

interface Zap {
  # Server discovery
  initialize @0 (info :ServerInfo) -> (info :ServerInfo);

  # Tools
  listTools @1 () -> (tools :List(Tool));
  callTool @2 (name :Text, arguments :Text) -> (result :ToolResult);

  # Resources
  listResources @3 () -> (resources :List(Resource));
  readResource @4 (uri :Text) -> (content :ResourceContent);

  # Prompts
  listPrompts @5 () -> (prompts :List(Prompt));
  getPrompt @6 (name :Text, arguments :Text) -> (messages :List(PromptMessage));
}

Development

Rust

cd /path/to/hanzo-zap
cargo build
cargo test

Python

cd /path/to/hanzo-zap/python
uv sync
uv run pytest

TypeScript

cd /path/to/hanzo-zap/typescript
npm install
npm run build
npm test

Documentation

Full documentation available at: https://hanzoai.github.io/zap

License

MIT OR Apache-2.0

Links

• GitHub
• Documentation
• Hanzo AI