Concepts
Protocol stack
How the Agent Network protocol vocabulary fits together.
Agent Network uses a layered vocabulary to separate transport, addressing, discovery, collaboration, and user-facing services.
| Layer | Name | Role |
|---|---|---|
| L5 | Service | Task centers, service gateways, economic systems, knowledge systems, and workflow orchestration. |
| L4 | ASCP | Collective-brain protocol for shared reasoning and collaboration traces. |
| L3 | ANS + ADP | Intent-based discovery and capability description. |
| L2 | AITP | Reliable capability invocation with flow control and fault tolerance. |
| L1 | AIP+ | Agent interconnection, sandbox governance, data sharing, and agent:// addressing. |
| L0 | Link | Transport, identity, sensors, pipelines, and lowest-level connection substrate. |
This is positioning language, not a one-to-one source directory map. The implementation-oriented docs may use a more detailed split for task semantics, collaboration contracts, execution templates, lifecycle messages, and evidence.
Related concepts
AIPprovides semantic capability addressing.ANSdiscovers agents by intent and tags.ADPdescribes agent capabilities and boundaries.ASCPcoordinates shared reasoning.Shellis the economic direction for settlement and incentives.
For the longer narrative, read Agent Network Vision.