Agent Client Protocol vs Agentic Commerce Protocol
Both belong to the Protocols called ACP group on this map. They share the acronym ACP but sit at different steps and are unrelated. They answer different questions: Agent Client Protocol is a step 5 (Act) standard, Agentic Commerce Protocol step 7 (Pay), so they are not substitutes.
| Agent Client Protocol ACP | Agentic Commerce Protocol ACP | |
|---|---|---|
| Lifecycle step | 5 Act: Do something for me | 7 Pay: Settle the bill |
| Answers | How does a code editor invoke and converse with an interchangeable coding agent it did not build? | How do a buyer's agent and a merchant complete a deterministic, programmatic checkout without the agent becoming the merchant of record? |
| Governed by | Zed Industries acts as BDFL/design-team lead over a public Request for Dialog (RFD) process; Sergey Ignatov (JetBrains) joined as a second Lead Maintainer on 2026-02-18, reflecting growing Zed/JetBrains collaboration | Technical Steering Committee (up to 7 org seats); OpenAI, Stripe, and Meta are lead maintainers, with OpenAI and Stripe as Founding Maintainers holding last-resort veto over mission, neutrality, security, and fork-integrity decisions |
| Status (issuer's words) | v1 stable and shipping; v2 published in Draft form as of 2026-07-20 | Beta open standard, interaction model for connecting buyers, agents, and businesses |
| Phase | stable | living |
| Version | v1.11.0 (schema v1.25.0); v2 unstable (2026-10-09) | 2026-04-17 (date-versioned spec; unreleased/ tracks current development) (2026-04-17) |
| Form / transport | endpoint | endpoint |
| Found at | none fixed; local agents are launched as sub-processes, remote agents connect over HTTP or WebSocket (remote support still a work in progress) | Bilateral capability negotiation (per RFC: capability_negotiation) between agent platform and merchant; no fixed well-known path published |
| Adoption | unmeasured | claimed — OpenAI and Stripe (project README) |
| Evidence | 4 verified, 1 reported | 3 verified, 2 reported |
| Primary use case | Describe an agent's capabilities | Let agents buy on behalf of a person |
| Last verified | 2026-10-19 (current) | 2026-10-19 (current) |
| Specification | https://agentclientprotocol.com/get-started/introduction | https://github.com/agentic-commerce-protocol/agentic-commerce-protocol |
When to use which
- Choose Agent Client Protocol when your question is “How does a code editor invoke and converse with an interchangeable coding agent it did not build?” and you accept its maturity: phase stable, adoption unmeasured.
- Choose Agentic Commerce Protocol when your question is “How do a buyer's agent and a merchant complete a deterministic, programmatic checkout without the agent becoming the merchant of record?” and you accept its maturity: phase living, adoption claimed (OpenAI and Stripe (project README)).
Read the full articles
- Agent Client Protocol: How does a code editor invoke and converse with an interchangeable coding agent it did not build?
- Agentic Commerce Protocol: How do a buyer's agent and a merchant complete a deterministic, programmatic checkout without the agent becoming the merchant of record?
agent-client-protocol.json · agentic-commerce-protocol.json · Markdown