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Agent Transfer Protocol AGTP

By Belgravia Labs Standards Observatory · Last verified · 2 primary sources

Agent Transfer Protocol (AGTP) is an agentic-web standard (endpoint) at step 6, Coordinate, governed by IETF individual/independent submission; its status is "Internet-Draft, independent submission". It answers: "How can AI agent traffic be identified, authenticated, and governed as a distinct application-layer protocol rather than blending into ordinary HTTP?" Implementation status is none found, last verified 2026-10-29.

Coordinate The Agent Transfer Protocol (AGTP) is an Internet-Draft proposing a dedicated, non-HTTP, application-layer transport protocol purpose-built for AI agent traffic, submitted independently to the IETF (not sponsored by a working group) by Chris Hood of Nomotic, Inc [1]. It aims to solve a problem the author frames as: HTTP-based "Agent Group Messaging Protocols" (the draft's own term, naming MCP, ACP, A2A, and ANP as examples) presuppose HTTP as transport and so lack semantic vocabulary, observability primitives, and agent-identity mechanisms at the transport layer [2]. AGTP proposes its own intent-oriented methods (QUERY, SUMMARIZE, BOOK, SCHEDULE, LEARN, DELEGATE, COLLABORATE, CONFIRM, ESCALATE, NOTIFY, DESCRIBE, SUSPEND), protocol-level agent identity/authority headers, a purpose-built status-code vocabulary, and prefers QUIC with mandatory TCP/TLS fallback [2].

Overview

AGTP does not define a discovery mechanism comparable to a well-known URI, and — because it proposes an entirely new wire protocol rather than a convention layered on existing HTTP infrastructure — it has no probe that can be executed with a simple curl against an arbitrary origin; there is no evidence of any implementation, reference or otherwise.

As of 2026-09-05 the current revision on the IETF datatracker is -09, dated 2026-06-28, succeeding earlier revisions including -04 (2026-04-17); the abstract that draft-09 preserves has iterated substantially, layering in normative integration hooks for a "Merchant Identity and Agentic Commerce Binding specification," new merchant-related headers, and new authority-scope domains, evidence that the draft is under active, fast-moving individual authorship [1][2]. It remains an independent submission: it has not been adopted by any IETF working group, has no known implementations, and its status track here is recorded as IETF only in the loose sense of venue — it is not on a working-group standards track. What is unresolved: whether any organization beyond the sole named author (Nomotic, Inc.) is contributing to or planning to implement AGTP; no evidence of external implementers or adopters was found.

Discovery and probe

none · none

none none — AGTP is a non-HTTP application-layer protocol (QUIC preferred, TCP/TLS fallback) with its own method vocabulary (QUERY, SUMMARIZE, BOOK, SCHEDULE, LEARN, DELEGATE, COLLABORATE, CONFIRM, ESCALATE, NOTIFY, DESCRIBE, SUSPEND); it defines no well-known HTTP path or endpoint that a curl-style probe could hit
parse:     not applicable: there is no HTTP response body or header to parse because AGTP does not run over HTTP
on absent: not applicable — no implementation of AGTP has been located anywhere, so there is nothing to probe for absence against; see summary_md

Not probed live: not-http. AGTP is its own application-layer protocol over QUIC or TCP.

Instances

Every instance with its source is listed on the instances page.

See also

References

  1. draft-hood-independent-agtp is at revision 09 (dated 2026-06-28 per the IETF datatracker document history), authored by Chris Hood of Nomotic, Inc., filed as an independent submission (not a working-group draft). — https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-hood-independent-agtp/ (2026-09-05) VERIFIED
  2. The draft defines AGTP as a dedicated application-layer protocol for AI agent traffic, distinct from and layered beneath HTTP-based agent protocols it calls Agent Group Messaging Protocols (AGMP) including MCP, ACP, A2A, and ANP; it prefers QUIC and requires TCP/TLS fallback. — https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-hood-independent-agtp-04.html (2026-09-05) VERIFIED

Verification log and errata

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Frequently asked questions

What is Agent Transfer Protocol (AGTP)?
Agent Transfer Protocol (AGTP) is an agentic-web standard (endpoint) at step 6, Coordinate, governed by IETF individual/independent submission; its status is "Internet-Draft, independent submission". It answers: "How can AI agent traffic be identified, authenticated, and governed as a distinct application-layer protocol rather than blending into ordinary HTTP?" Implementation status is none found, last verified 2026-10-29.
What is the adoption and standardization status of Agent Transfer Protocol?
Internet-Draft (work in progress), independent submission, governed by IETF individual/independent submission; not adopted by an IETF working group. Implementation: none found. Version: draft-hood-independent-agtp-09 (2026-06-28). Last verified 2026-10-29.
How does Agent Transfer Protocol compare to other coordinate protocols?
Agent Transfer Protocol (AGTP) is one of 13 standards at step 6, Coordinate (Talk to another agent). It pairs with Agent2Agent Protocol (A2A), Model Context Protocol, Agent Network Protocol, Agent Communication Protocol. Every standard at this step is listed at https://agenticweb.wiki/category/coordinate/.