A Framework for Agent Discovery in DAWN (draft-zhang-dawn-agent-discovery-framework-01)

Abstract

A 31-page individual Internet-Draft proposing a two-layer federated reference architecture for cross-organizational AI agent discovery within the IETF DAWN work. The Local Discovery Plane performs zero-configuration agent advertisement and collection inside a site without mandating a link-local protocol; the Federation Plane links site gateways that already trust each other through lightweight Federation Metadata Records (FMR), a concrete binding of the DAWN Minimum Discoverable Information, while full Capability Cards are fetched on demand over authenticated unicast. Data sovereignty is enforced by an Export Policy Engine in the site gateway, which decides which records reach which peers and which fields are stripped, so one local inventory yields different subsets per peer. The draft is Informational, defines no normative protocol formats and does not compete with ACAP, Agent Directory or ARDP. Note a known gap raised in public review: the FMR carries origin, endpoint, capability, freshness and provenance but no authorized-audience set, redistribution flag or export-policy version, so the origin sharing decision does not travel with the record beyond the first hop.