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Agora Protocol

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This page is about the Agora Protocol from Samuele Marro and co-authors at the University of Oxford (arXiv 2410.11905): a meta-protocol in which LLM agents talk in natural language, agree on plain-text protocol documents identified by a hash, and then exchange JSON through generated routines. It is not Agora (agent marketplace protocol) at agoraproto.org, an unrelated escrow marketplace that shares the name. Protocols it is compared with have their own pages: the Agent2Agent Protocol (A2A), the Agent Network Protocol (ANP), the Model Context Protocol (MCP), the Agent Communication Protocol and the Agent Connect Protocol (see ACP).

Overview

Agora is a research protocol for letting language-model agents that have never met work together cheaply [1]. Two agents start in plain language [1][7]. When the same kind of exchange keeps recurring, they agree on a short protocol document, refer to it by its hash, and each writes a small program to handle its side, so later messages need no model call [1][3][7]. The authors published the idea in October 2024, released a Python library and a formal draft in early 2025, and have made no commits since March 2025 [1][3][9][10]. Surveys cite it as an example of a meta-protocol; we found one outside research fork and no production use [19][24][26].

How it works

The 2025 Working Standard

What changed from the 2024 specification

Not to be confused with

Who uses it

Two of the three entries come from the authors themselves. The third is a research fork, not a product. We found no company that documents running Agora in production.

Who reads it

Other projects' stated positions on Agora. Each entry carries the date of the statement, or the date we read the page when it has none.

Recent coverage

See also

References

  1. arXiv, Marro et al., A Scalable Communication Protocol for Networks of Large Language Models (2410.11905), abstract page, checked 2026-10-29: "Submitted on 14 Oct 2024" "[v1] Mon, 14 Oct 2024 23:25:13 UTC" "We introduce Agora, a meta protocol that leverages existing communication standards to make LLM-powered agents solve complex problems efficiently." "In Agora, agents typically use standardised routines for frequent communications, natural language for rare communications, and LLM-written routines for everything in between." "Agora sidesteps the Agent Communication Trilemma and robustly handles changes in interfaces and members, allowing unprecedented scalability with full decentralisation and minimal involvement of human beings." — https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.11905
  2. arXiv, Marro et al., A Scalable Communication Protocol for Networks of Large Language Models, HTML of v1, checked 2026-10-29: "Guohao Li Affiliation: Eigent AI" "Our code is available at github.com/agora-protocol/paper-demo." — https://arxiv.org/html/2410.11905v1
  3. Agora Protocol documentation, Standard (Working Standard), checked 2026-10-29: "Copyright Notice (C) 2025 Samuele Marro." "All Agora exchanges MUST occur over HTTPS using HTTP POST." "A Protocol Document is a text file with two parts, separated by a line containing ---" "The resulting 40-character hexadecimal digest MUST serve as the unique protocol identifier in protocolHash." "Below is the Working Standard for the Agora Protocol, structured in a style similar to IETF RFCs. It includes the sections outlined previously, along with normative language (per RFC 2119 and RFC 8174). While this document follows a typical RFC format, it should be understood as a draft." "This document is intended to be a Proposed Standard." "Last updated on Jan 19, 2025" "A Server MAY implement: GET { baseURL } / wellknown The Server MUST return a JSON object where each key is a supported protocolHash, and the value is a (non-empty) list of Protocol Document sources." "Optional features (like the well-known endpoint) remain RECOMMENDED but not mandatory." "If future versions wish to register a well-known URI (e.g.,.well-known/agora), that would be addressed in an update." "This document specifies the Agora Protocol, a lightweight JSON-based framework for two-party exchanges (client and server). The protocol accommodates both single-round (stateless) and multi-round (stateful) conversations, supports optional strict "Protocol Documents" identified by a SHA1 hash, and defines a clear separation of transport-level, Agora-level, and protocol-level errors." "Once a multi-round conversation is established, the Client MUST POST subsequent requests to: { baseURL } / conversations / { conversationId }" "If the Server does not support it, it MUST return: { "status": "failure", "error": "Unsupported protocol" }" "Out of Scope: Authentication, authorization, or key management. Negotiation mechanisms beyond providing a well-known endpoint for protocol discovery." — https://agoraprotocol.org/docs/protocol/specification
  4. GitHub REST API, contributors to agora-protocol/python, checked 2026-10-29: ""login": "samuelemarro"" ""contributions": 133" ""login": "ShayekhBinIslam"" ""contributions": 1" — https://api.github.com/repos/agora-protocol/python/contributors
  5. Agora Protocol documentation, Community, checked 2026-10-29: "Our main community point is on Discord!" — https://agoraprotocol.org/community/overview
  6. Agora Protocol website, Agora Protocol - Scalable Communication Between Agents, checked 2026-10-29: "What license does Agora use? Agora is released under MIT license." "Agents add the SHA1 hash of the text file describing the protocol." "No, Agora is fully decentralized. All agents can communicate without relying on any central node." "Efficient Reduce token usage by 98%" — https://agoraprotocol.org/
  7. agora-protocol/paper-demo, README.md, Agora - A Scalable Communication Protocol for Networks of LLMs, checked 2026-10-29: "We're building the next iteration of Agora, with more features for real-world use cases." "For rare communications, they use LLMs to talk with each other in natural language" "For frequent communications, they use LLMs to negotiate a protocol for communication, usually involving structured data (e.g. JSON)" "Once a protocol is finalized, they use LLMs to implement _routines_, simple scripts (e.g. in Python) that send or receive data" "Future communications are handled using the routines, which means that LLMs aren't required anymore" "This demo showcases a network of 100 agents interacting with each other." "The agents have different LLMs (OpenAI GPT-4o, Llama 3 405b, Gemini 1.5 Pro) and different DB technologies (MongoDB, SQL)" "Important: This demo was originally made for the paper. Check out our updated HuggingFace demo and our Python library." — https://raw.githubusercontent.com/agora-protocol/paper-demo/main/README.md
  8. agora-protocol/python, README.md, python, checked 2026-10-29: "Agora Python is currently in Open Beta! Expect breaking changes from one version to the other." "The Agora Protocol is a protocol for efficient communication between heterogeneous agents. It allows agents of any framework to communicate with agents in any other framework, while maximizing efficiency." "This is a quick example where two agents (a LangChain agent and a Camel agent) exchange weather data." — https://raw.githubusercontent.com/agora-protocol/python/main/README.md
  9. GitHub REST API, commits on main of agora-protocol/python, checked 2026-10-29: ""date": "2025-03-08" — https://api.github.com/repos/agora-protocol/python/commits?per_page=5
  10. GitHub REST API, releases of agora-protocol/python, checked 2026-10-29: ""tag_name": "0.2.0"" ""published_at": "2025-01-03" — https://api.github.com/repos/agora-protocol/python/releases
  11. PyPI JSON API, agora-protocol, checked 2026-10-29: ""name":"agora-protocol"" ""version":"0.2.0"" ""upload_time":"2025-01-03" — https://pypi.org/pypi/agora-protocol/json
  12. GitHub REST API, commits on master of agora-protocol/agora-protocol.github.io, checked 2026-10-29: ""date": "2024-12-03" — https://api.github.com/repos/agora-protocol/agora-protocol.github.io/commits?per_page=3
  13. Agora Protocol documentation, Beginner-Friendly Specification, checked 2026-10-29: "We follow the "one conversation, one protocol" rule: you cannot change protocol throughout a conversation." — https://agoraprotocol.org/docs/protocol/beginner-friendly
  14. agora-protocol/agora-protocol.github.io, specs.html, Agora Protocol Specification (2024 site), checked 2026-10-29: "Agents can expose an endpoint, namely /.wellknown, which returns a JSON list of supported protocol hashes and corresponding sources." "Alice sends to Bob over HTTPS a JSON object containing the following fields:" "These features could potentially be added to the standard in the near future." — https://raw.githubusercontent.com/agora-protocol/agora-protocol.github.io/master/specs.html
  15. agoraproto.org, llms.txt, Agora Protocol — agoraproto.org, checked 2026-10-29: "Open marketplace and communication protocol where AI agents discover, hire, and pay other AI agents for paid work." "This file describes only one of them." "or cites Marro et al., that is a different project" — https://agoraproto.org/llms.txt
  16. Agora Protocol documentation, Getting Started, checked 2026-10-29: "A LangChain agent that wants to retrieve temperature data A Camel agent that has access to weather data" "The two will exchange information first using natural language and then, depending on the need, with structured data and automatic routines" — https://agoraprotocol.org/docs/getting-started
  17. Hugging Face API, Space agora-protocol/agora-demo, checked 2026-10-29: ""id":"agora-protocol/agora-demo"" ""stage":"BUILD_ERROR"" ""createdAt":"2024-11-12" ""lastModified":"2024-11-27" — https://huggingface.co/api/spaces/agora-protocol/agora-demo
  18. Hugging Face, Agora Demo - a Hugging Face Space by agora-protocol, checked 2026-10-29: "build error Job failed with exit code: 1." — https://huggingface.co/spaces/agora-protocol/agora-demo
  19. arXiv, Sharma et al., Position: Collaborative Agentic AI Needs Interoperability Across Ecosystems (2505.21550), HTML, checked 2026-10-29: "Specifically, we forked and modified the codebases of A2A, ACP, and Agora to incorporate HTTP-based messaging, interaction documentation endpoints, session-based state management, and capability advertisement at well-known paths." "Source code available at https://github.com/sacs-epfl/web-of-agents." "While some emerging protocols like ACP and Agora directly leverage HTTP requests for agent-to-agent communication, other solutions like A2A have opted for more specialized protocols like JSON-RPC" — https://arxiv.org/html/2505.21550
  20. GitHub REST API, repository sacs-epfl/web-of-agents, checked 2026-10-29: ""full_name": "sacs-epfl/web-of-agents"" ""created_at": "2026-05-15" ""pushed_at": "2026-05-25" — https://api.github.com/repos/sacs-epfl/web-of-agents
  21. GitHub REST API, top-level contents of sacs-epfl/web-of-agents, checked 2026-10-29: ""name": ".agora"" ""name": "a2a-python"" ""name": "acp"" ""name": "agora"" ""name": "services"" — https://api.github.com/repos/sacs-epfl/web-of-agents/contents
  22. sacs-epfl/web-of-agents, README.md, web of agents, checked 2026-10-29: "Visual demonstration for the "web of agents" utilising modified-standardized version of 3 agentic messaging systems: A2A, ACP and Agora and multiple agentic frameworks." — https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sacs-epfl/web-of-agents/main/README.md
  23. arXiv, Yang et al., A Survey of AI Agent Protocols, abstract page, checked 2026-10-29: "[v2] Sat, 26 Apr 2025 15:16:11 UTC" — https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.16736
  24. arXiv, Yang et al., A Survey of AI Agent Protocols (2504.16736), HTML of v2, checked 2026-10-29: "Shanghai Jiao Tong University ANP Community" "Meta-Protocol Layer: Serving as a protocol of protocols, this layer enables agents to autonomously negotiate and coordinate communication protocols using natural language, such as Agora (Marro et al., 2024)." "Agora introduces Protocol Documents (PDs), which are plain-text protocol descriptions that allow agents to autonomously negotiate, implement, adapt, and even create new protocols without human intervention." "Agora Marro et al. (2024) University of Oxford Meta protocol between agents Protocol Document Concept" — https://arxiv.org/html/2504.16736v2
  25. Emissar glossary (Emissar team), Agora protocol, 26 Sep 2026, checked 2026-10-29: "By Emissar team · Published September 26, 2026" "ANP includes a draft meta-protocol layer for similar negotiation." "A2A takes the opposite approach: one fixed message and task model that every implementation shares." "Emissar is building the network where AI agents from different companies find each other, prove who they represent, and settle requests directly, on the open A2A standard." "A research meta-protocol for LLM agents: they agree on plain-text protocol documents identified by hash, and fall back to natural language." "Its public GitHub repositories show no updates since March 2025." — https://emissar.ai/glossary/agora-protocol
  26. arXiv, Anbiaee et al., Security Threat Modeling for Emerging AI-Agent Protocols: A Comparative Analysis of MCP, A2A, Agora, and ANP (2602.11327), abstract page, checked 2026-10-29: "Submitted on 11 Feb 2026 (v1), last revised 17 Apr 2026 (this version, v2)" "The rapid development of the AI agent communication protocols, including the Model Context Protocol (MCP), Agent2Agent (A2A), Agora, and Agent Network Protocol (ANP), is reshaping how AI agents communicate with tools, services, and each other." "Journal reference: Journal of Information Security and Applications, 2026, Article 104645" — https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.11327
  27. arXiv, Anbiaee et al., Security Threat Modeling for Emerging AI-Agent Protocols, HTML of v2, checked 2026-10-29: "its main novelty lies in the use of Protocol Documents (PDs) that allow autonomous agents to negotiate, adapt, and modify protocols." — https://arxiv.org/html/2602.11327v2
  28. arXiv, Sharma et al., Position: Collaborative Agentic AI Needs Interoperability Across Ecosystems, abstract page, checked 2026-10-29: "Submitted on 25 May 2025 (v1), last revised 29 Jun 2026 (this version, v2)" — https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.21550

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