@changgaowei: 同意,消息协议如果不管身份,跨域就只是通道。ANP 把这两层拆开又接上:`did:wba` 回答你是谁、凭什么验,消息 Profile(1:1 / 群 / E2EE / 联邦)只负责怎么传。身份还能拿去支付、授权,不和某一个 IM 绑死。…
Summary
ANP是一个开源协议,旨在为智能代理提供身份、命名、发现和安全通信的标准,将身份与消息传递分离,实现跨域协作。
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Cached at: 08/18/26, 10:45 AM
同意,消息协议如果不管身份,跨域就只是通道。ANP 把这两层拆开又接上:did:wba 回答你是谁、凭什么验,消息 Profile(1:1 / 群 / E2EE / 联邦)只负责怎么传。身份还能拿去支付、授权,不和某一个 IM 绑死。我们按这个做了开源协议和产品 AWiki(一个 DID,手机/PC/Agent 共用,Handle 同时带邮箱)。协议:https://github.com/agent-network-protocol/AgentNetworkProtocol… 产品:
agent-network-protocol/AgentNetworkProtocol
Source: https://github.com/agent-network-protocol/AgentNetworkProtocol
Agent Network Protocol (ANP)
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.
Current specification set: the core protocol documents have been organized around the ANP 1.1 release line. The released suite covers did:wba identity, WNS handles, agent description, agent discovery, end-to-end instant messaging, and the AP2 agent payment protocol. The meta-protocol specification remains a draft and is not released yet.
ANP Messaging 1.2 draft: the mixed-version draft suite defines multi-device cryptographic endpoints under one DID while keeping P1/P2/P3/P4/P7/P8 and the P9 Mention binding on v1. Only the incompatible Direct E2EE and Group E2EE Profiles use v2. Draft presence does not imply implementation support or public capability advertisement.
Versioning note: Version: 1.1 identifies the specification/document release version. It does not change the ANP payload field protocolVersion; examples and protocol fields that use "protocolVersion": "1.0.0" remain unchanged because this release does not change protocol fields, flows, or security requirements.
Note: This project has not issued any digital currency on any platform or blockchain.
Vision and Positioning
Agent Network Protocol (ANP) is an open-source communication protocol for intelligent agents. Its goal is to define how agents connect with each other and to build an open, secure, and efficient collaboration network for billions of agents.
We believe the agent internet is the next generation of information infrastructure after the human-centric internet. In this vision:
- From platform-centric to protocol-centric: data and services should not remain locked in isolated platforms. Agents need open protocols for direct connection.
- Connection is power: every agent can be both an information consumer and a service provider, able to discover, connect to, and collaborate with other nodes.
- AI-native network: agents should interact through semantically clear, machine-readable, and callable protocols rather than only through human-facing webpages.
Why We Need ANP
Current internet infrastructure is mature, but it still lacks a communication and connection layer designed for large-scale agent networks. 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.
- 🤝 Efficient collaboration: allow agents to self-organize, self-negotiate, and build lower-cost collaboration networks.
Protocol Architecture
ANP is built on existing Internet infrastructure and organizes the released protocol capabilities into two core protocol layers plus domain-specific application protocols:
- 🌐 Open Internet Infrastructure: ANP reuses HTTP, CA, DNS, CDN, Search, and TLS instead of rebuilding a new network stack.
- 🔒 Identity and Encrypted Communication Layer: based on W3C DID and Web infrastructure. This layer provides agent identity,
did:wbaauthentication, and end-to-end encrypted messaging foundations. - 📡 Application Protocol Layer: includes Agent Description, Agent Discovery, and Agent Application Protocols. Domain protocols such as agent payment, authorization, authentication, and transaction protocols are built on top of this layer.
- 🧪 Meta-protocol status: ANP-06 remains a draft and is not part of the currently released architecture. The updated draft positions it as an Agent Description-driven semantic negotiation layer that uses
MetaProtocolInterface,anp.get_capabilities, andanp.negotiateto select the subsequent interface, Profile, security profile, and schema.
Protocol Specification Index
| Area | Document | Status | What it defines |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overview | ANP Technical White Paper | White paper | Vision, design principles, and the three-layer architecture |
| Identity | ANP-03: did:wba Method Specification | Released v1.1 | Web-based DID method, cross-platform authentication, e1_ Ed25519 binding, k1_ compatibility extension |
| Naming | ANP-04: ANP-DID:WBA Name Space Specification | Released v1.1 | WNS handles such as alice.example.com, Handle-to-DID resolution, DID rotation support |
| Meta-protocol | ANP-06: Agent Communication Meta-Protocol | Draft / not released | Optional semantic meta-protocol negotiation, MetaProtocolInterface declaration, anp.negotiate, and interface / Profile / security profile / schema selection |
| Description | ANP-07: Agent Description Protocol | Released v1.1 | Agent Description documents, interface descriptions, and capability publication |
| Discovery | ANP-08: Agent Discovery Protocol | Released v1.1 | Active .well-known discovery and passive registration with search agents |
| Messaging | ANP-09: End-to-End Instant Messaging Overview | Released v1.1 + vNext Draft | Profile index for direct messaging, group messaging, E2EE, attachments, federation, mentions, and the separately versioned multi-device draft |
| Payments | ANP-10: Agent Payment Protocol (AP2) | Released v1.1 (EN); CN draft available | Agent-to-agent payments, mandates, receipts, DID-based signatures, and payment flows |
Instant Messaging Profiles
The released ANP 1.1 end-to-end instant messaging suite is split into focused profiles:
- P1 Core Binding: JSON-RPC 2.0 binding, request/response/error conventions.
- P2 Identity and Discovery: DID-based service discovery and endpoint capability discovery.
- P3 Direct Messaging Base Semantics: direct message sending and receipts.
- P4 Group Messaging Base Semantics: group lifecycle, membership, and group message semantics.
- P5 Direct End-to-End Encryption: E2EE overlay for direct messaging.
- P6 Group End-to-End Encryption: E2EE overlay for group messaging.
- P7 Attachments and Object Transfer: manifests, object services, and large-object transfer.
- P8 Federation and Cross-Domain: cross-domain routing, relaying, and result witnessing.
- P9 Message Mentions Extension: group-message mention payloads and selector semantics.
The ANP Messaging 1.2 draft index and its Chinese mirror define a legal mixed-version capability set: Base, Attachment, and Federation remain v1, while Direct E2EE and Group E2EE use v2. Ordinary Direct, Group, Mention, and Attachment operations stay addressed only by business DID or Group DID; their device fan-out remains local to the receiving domain. device_id appears only where an E2EE v2 Profile requires a cryptographic endpoint, including independent Direct sessions and multiple MLS leaves, and P8 v1 preserves device selectors only for such enclosing Profiles. Implementations MUST NOT reinterpret E2EE v1 state as v2 or silently downgrade an E2EE v2 operation.
DID Compatibility Appendices
Quick Start
- To understand ANP concepts and usage, read the ANP Getting Started Guide or the Chinese guide.
- To implement agent identity and authentication, start from ANP-03: did:wba and the two DID compatibility appendices.
- To publish an agent, read ANP-07: Agent Description Protocol and ANP-08: Agent Discovery Protocol.
- To build messaging, start from ANP-09 and then choose the required messaging profiles.
- To run demos, see ANP Sample Programs.
Protocol SDK
The open-source implementation of ANP is maintained in the AgentConnect repository:
AgentConnect focuses on practical SDK support for did:wba, authentication, agent description, protocol negotiation, secure communication, and application protocols.
Repository Layout
01-*.md,03-*.md,04-*.md,06-*.md,07-*.md,08-*.md,09-*.md: core English protocol documents.application/: application-layer protocols such as AP2.message/: the released ANP 1.1 end-to-end instant messaging Profile suite;message/vnext/contains separately versioned v2 drafts.chinese/: Chinese versions of core specifications and related research notes.docs/: guides, extended reading, and community operations documents.blogs/: articles and protocol analysis.examples/: sample ADP assets, API interface examples, and messaging vNext multi-device JSON examples.images/andstandard/: shared figures and standardization references.
Further Reading
Milestones
- Define and implement the identity authentication and secure communication foundation.
-
Release
did:wbav1.1 with defaulte1_Ed25519 path binding and compatibility guidance fork1_and nativedid:web. - Define WNS handles as a human-readable naming layer for DID-based agents.
- Release the Agent Description Protocol and Agent Discovery Protocol.
- Release the meta-protocol after the draft is stabilized.
- Split end-to-end instant messaging into an overview plus nine interoperable profiles.
- Stabilize and review the separately versioned multi-device messaging vNext draft.
- Add the AP2 agent payment protocol to the application layer.
- Continue aligning SDK implementations and examples with the 1.1 specification set.
- Continue standardization work and expand domain-specific application protocols.
Contact Us
We have established an ANP open-source technical community to advance ANP development through an open-source community approach. We sincerely invite you to join our community.
- Email: [email protected]
- Discord: https://discord.gg/sFjBKTY7sB
- Official website: https://agent-network-protocol.com/
- GitHub: https://github.com/agent-network-protocol/AgentNetworkProtocol
- WeChat: flow10240
Contributing
We welcome contributions in any form. Please refer to CONTRIBUTING.md.
Contributors
We extend our sincere gratitude to all contributors for their outstanding work and dedication to the Agent Network Protocol project.
License
This project is open-sourced under the MIT License. For details, please refer to LICENSE. The copyright is held by GaoWei Chang. Any user of this project must retain the original copyright notice and license file.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2024 GaoWei Chang This file is released under the MIT License. You are free to use and modify it, but must retain this copyright notice.
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@changgaowei: The latest version of ANP has been released. Supporting open-source projects will be rolled out gradually—stay tuned. This article is technical in nature. In one sentence: ANP has made inter-agent cross-domain communication more solid. Email can also do cross-domain communication, but it has two fatal flaws: one is the heavy historical baggage of the protocol, so basically no one explores agent protocols based on email; the other is identity—email identities are hard to adapt for agents. I'll dive into this topic another day.
The latest version of ANP (Agent Network Protocol) has been released, with supporting open-source projects to follow. This protocol has made substantial improvements in cross-domain communication for agents, and is better suited to agent identity and communication needs compared to the Email protocol.
@changgaowei: Cross-machine agent conversations are the right problem. We split it the same way: identity first (`did:wba`), then mes…
Agent Network Protocol (ANP) is an open-source communication protocol designed to enable secure, efficient interactions between AI agents, positioning itself as the HTTP of the Agentic Web era.
@changgaowei: https://x.com/changgaowei/status/2054428524749189518
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@vintcessun: 代理通信协议只定义消息怎么传,不回答你是谁、凭什么、认不认。 https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.13030 InterSAGE 补上这层信任:身份层把开发者、代码包和部署上下文绑进 Agent Identity Car…
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