Multi-Agent Protocol (MAP)

A JSON-RPC based protocol for observing, coordinating, and routing messages within multi-agent AI systems.

Overview

Unlike protocols designed for single-agent interaction (ACP) or peer-to-peer agent delegation (A2A), MAP provides a window into a multi-agent system with visibility into its internal structure, agent relationships, and message flows.

MAP provides a standardized way for:

• Clients to observe and interact with agent systems (with configurable visibility)
• Agents to communicate, form hierarchies, and join scopes
• Systems to federate and route messages across boundaries

Protocol Landscape

| Protocol | Relationship | Visibility | Primary Use | |----------|--------------|------------|-------------| | MCP | Agent → Tool | N/A | Tool invocation | | ACP | Client → Agent | Opaque | Single-agent sessions | | A2A | Agent → Agent (peer) | Opaque | Cross-org delegation | | MAP | Client → System | Transparent | Internal orchestration |

Packages

| Package | Description | |---------|-------------| | @multi-agent-protocol/sdk | TypeScript SDK for MAP |

Quick Start

npm install @multi-agent-protocol/sdk

import { ClientConnection, createStreamPair } from '@multi-agent-protocol/sdk';

// Connect to a MAP server
const client = new ClientConnection(stream, { name: 'My Client' });
await client.connect();

// Subscribe to events
const subscription = await client.subscribe({
  eventTypes: ['agent.registered', 'agent.state.changed'],
});

for await (const event of subscription) {
  console.log(event.type, event.data);
}

Features

• Real-time streaming - Subscribe to events with backpressure support
• Auto-reconnection - Exponential backoff with subscription restoration
• Permission system - 4-layer access control (system, participant, scope, agent)
• Persistent identity - Stable agent identity across sessions using DID:key, SPIFFE, DID:web standards
• Federation - Connect multiple MAP systems with envelope-based routing
• Causal ordering - Events released in dependency order

Documentation

Schema

The protocol schema is defined in schema/:

• schema.json - Complete JSON Schema for all MAP message types
• meta.json - Method metadata, tiers, and error codes

Repository Structure

multi-agent-protocol/
├── docs/                   # Design specifications
├── schema/                 # JSON Schema and metadata
│   ├── schema.json         # Protocol message schemas
│   └── meta.json           # Method tiers and error codes
└── ts-sdk/                 # TypeScript SDK implementation
    ├── src/                # Source code
    └── docs/               # SDK-specific docs (gap analysis)

Development

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build SDK
npm run build -w ts-sdk

# Run tests
npm test -w ts-sdk

# Type check
npm run typecheck -w ts-sdk

Protocol Methods

The protocol defines 27 methods across three tiers:

Core (Required): map/connect, map/disconnect, map/send, map/subscribe, map/unsubscribe, map/agents/list, map/agents/get

Structure (Recommended): Agent lifecycle (register, spawn, unregister, update, stop, suspend, resume), scope management (scopes/create, join, leave), and structure queries

Extensions (Optional): Federation (federation/connect, federation/route), credential brokering (cred/get, cred/list, cred/status), session management, and steering (map/inject)

Persistent Agent Identity

MAP supports stable agent identities that persist across sessions, connections, and delegation chains. Identity is separate from capability (what you can do) and transient AgentId (which instance you are).

Supported identity standards:

• W3C DID:key (did:key:z6Mk...) - Self-certifying Ed25519 keypair identities
• CNCF SPIFFE (spiffe://trust-domain/path) - Workload/attested identities
• W3C DID:web (did:web:domain:path) - Domain-anchored decentralized identities

Key features:

• Agent resumption - reconnect and resume a previous agent by matching persistentId
• Pluggable identity verification via IdentityVerifier hook
• Progressive trust through W3C Verifiable Credential endorsements
• Identity propagation through spawn and federation
• Credential audit trail with persistentId

License

MIT

Authors

Created and maintened by the sudocode team.