Agent Connect Protocol (AGNTCY) 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 Connect Protocol (AGNTCY) is a step 5 (Act) standard, Agentic Commerce Protocol step 7 (Pay), so they are not substitutes.
| Agent Connect Protocol (AGNTCY) ACP | Agentic Commerce Protocol ACP | |
|---|---|---|
| Lifecycle step | 5 Act: Do something for me | 7 Pay: Settle the bill |
| Answers | How does one agent (or an orchestrator) invoke and configure a remote agent it did not build, over a plain HTTP API? | How do a buyer's agent and a merchant complete a deterministic, programmatic checkout without the agent becoming the merchant of record? |
| Governed by | AGNTCY project (Cisco donated AGNTCY to the Linux Foundation); the acp-spec GitHub repository was archived by its owner (the agntcy GitHub organization) on 2026-04-11 and is now read-only, while the broader AGNTCY project (49 repositories, most recently updated within hours of this check) remains active under Linux Foundation governance, with its discovery/identity work now centered on the 'dir' (Distributed Announce and Discovery) and OASF (Open Agentic Schema Framework) projects rather than acp-spec | 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) | Archived repository (2026-04-11) | Beta open standard, interaction model for connecting buyers, agents, and businesses |
| Phase | deprecated | living |
| Version | v0.2.3 (OpenAPI 3.1.1) (2025-05-23) | 2026-04-17 (date-versioned spec; unreleased/ tracks current development) (2026-04-17) |
| Form / transport | endpoint | endpoint |
| Found at | /agents/search | 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 | Let agents talk to other agents | Let agents buy on behalf of a person |
| Last verified | 2026-10-19 (current) | 2026-10-19 (current) |
| Specification | https://github.com/agntcy/acp-spec | https://github.com/agentic-commerce-protocol/agentic-commerce-protocol |
When to use which
- Choose Agent Connect Protocol (AGNTCY) when your question is “How does one agent (or an orchestrator) invoke and configure a remote agent it did not build, over a plain HTTP API?” and you accept its maturity: phase deprecated, adoption unmeasured. It is no longer maintained; prefer its successor.
- 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 Connect Protocol (AGNTCY): How does one agent (or an orchestrator) invoke and configure a remote agent it did not build, over a plain HTTP API?
- 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-connect-protocol.json · agentic-commerce-protocol.json · Markdown