Agent Network Protocol (ANP) v1.2

Abstract

Verbatim from the project README: "ANP aims to become the HTTP of the Agentic Web era: a protocol suite for agent identity, naming, discovery, negotiation, secure messaging, and application-level collaboration." On why it is needed, the README states that current internet infrastructure "is mature, but it still lacks a communication and connection layer designed for large-scale agent networks", and that ANP focuses on three challenges: "Interconnection: enable agents from different platforms and domains to authenticate, discover, and communicate with each other"; "Native interfaces: let AI use APIs, protocol documents, structured descriptions, and negotiated interfaces instead of imitating human browsing"; and "Efficient collaboration: allow agents to self-organize, self-negotiate, and build lower-cost collaboration networks". It is organised as an identity and encrypted-communication layer based on W3C DID and Web infrastructure (ANP-02 DID Authentication, which separates common authentication from DID method validation including did:wba and native did:web; ANP-03 did:wba method; ANP-04 WNS Naming; ANP-09 end-to-end instant messaging plus P1-P9 messaging profiles defining DID addressing and device-bound end-to-end encryption) and an application protocol layer comprising Agent Description, Agent Discovery and Agent Application protocols. The specification index marks Agent Description (ANP-07, covering agent description documents, interface descriptions and capability publication) and Agent Discovery (ANP-08, active `.well-known` discovery and passive registration with search agents) as Released v1.2. Verbatim on positioning: "ANP reuses HTTP, CA, DNS, CDN, Search, and TLS instead of rebuilding a new network stack." The repository is Apache-2.0 licensed; the README carries a notice that the project has not issued any digital currency on any platform or blockchain.