Decentralized identity, discovery, messaging, and payment protocols for interoperable AI agents.
Protocol stack
ANP is organized as a layered protocol suite so implementations can adopt the foundation first, then add messaging, discovery, and payment capabilities as needed.
ANP reuses the open Internet foundation: HTTP, CA, DNS, CDN, Search, TLS, and existing web deployment patterns.
02 / 03 / 04 / 09DID:WBA, WNS, authentication, key distribution, and secure messaging form the cross-domain infrastructure layer.
07 / 08Agents describe services, capabilities, endpoints, and discovery mechanisms in a way other agents can consume.
09 / P1-P9Direct messaging, group messaging, E2EE, attachments, and federation are split into focused profiles.
DomainPayment, authorization, authentication, commerce, and other vertical protocols sit at the application layer.
Architecture
ANP 1.2 builds on open Internet infrastructure with identity and encrypted communication foundations and domain-specific application protocols.
Latest protocol updates
ANP-02 defines method-independent request authentication for did:wba and native did:web.
NewThe updated profile set covers direct messages, groups, device-bound E2EE, attachments, and federation. P6 remains a candidate.
UpdatedHuman-readable handles such as alice.example.com map to did:wba identities with bidirectional verification.
