# LMOS (Language Model Operating System) LMOS

[1 · Discover](/category/discover/)

| LMOS (Language Model Operating System) |
| --- |
| Category | [Discover](/category/discover/) |
| Governed by | Eclipse Foundation open-source project (Eclipse Public License-compatible governance); code Apache License 2.0; top committer affiliated with Deutsche Telekom (openHAB/Kai Kreuzer lineage); not yet on the W3C standards track |
| Status | LMOS Protocol spec is explicitly "work in progress and contains empty sections"; "It is not a W3C Standard nor is it on the W3C Standards Track" (project's own words), though the project states it plans to start the formal W3C process once mature |
| Phase | draft |
| Implementation | shipping |
| Adoption | observed |
| Version | LMOS Protocol v1 (draft, namespace https://eclipse.dev/lmos/protocol/v1) |
| Specification | [https://eclipse.dev/lmos/docs/lmos_protocol/introduction/](https://eclipse.dev/lmos/docs/lmos_protocol/introduction/) |
| Found at | Three-layer protocol: Application layer defines a JSON-LD Agent/Tool Description Format (built on W3C Web of Things Thing Descriptions) plus DNS-SD/mDNS for local discovery and agent registries for global discovery; Identity layer uses W3C Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) to sign description documents |
| Last checked | 2026-09-06 |

[Discover](/category/discover/) LMOS (Language Model Operating System) is an Eclipse Foundation open-source project that defines both a protocol and a cloud-native platform for building an "Internet of Agents" (IoA) — an internet-scale multi-agent system where agents and tools from different organizations can be published, discovered, and interconnected regardless of the technology they are built on [[1]](#ref-1). The LMOS Protocol itself is the discovery-and-description layer: it standardizes how an agent or tool describes its capabilities in JSON-LD (borrowing the W3C Web of Things Thing Description model), how that description propagates (DNS-SD/mDNS locally, agent registries globally), and how agents authenticate each other using W3C Decentralized Identifiers [[2]](#ref-2).

## Overview
It solves cross-organization agent/tool discovery and description in a transport-agnostic way — the same agent description can be served over HTTP, MQTT, WebSocket or AMQP without changing application logic, echoing how Matter/Thread lets smart-home devices from different vendors interoperate and how ActivityPub lets different social platforms federate [[2]](#ref-2). It explicitly does not attempt to be a single fixed transport or wire format: transport selection and negotiation is left to a separate Transport Protocol Layer, and identity/security is a separate layer supporting both DIDs and conventional OAuth2/Bearer schemes [[2]](#ref-2).

As of this check (September 2026), the LMOS Protocol specification is, in the project's own words, "work in progress and contains empty sections" and is explicitly "not a W3C Standard nor... on the W3C Standards Track," though the project states an intent to pursue formal W3C standardization once the spec matures [[2]](#ref-2). This is a meaningfully earlier stage than the platform around it: the surrounding Eclipse LMOS platform (LMOS Operator, Runtime, Router, and the Arc Kotlin DSL framework for building agents) is actively developed, with commits across its 15 repositories within days of this check [[3]](#ref-3).

Governance sits with the Eclipse Foundation as an open-source project, with Apache License 2.0 code and Deutsche Telekom's engineering lineage visible in the top-committer history (the project descends from the same team behind openHAB) [[3]](#ref-3). Implementations exist — the LMOS Runtime, Operator, and Router are real, shipping Kotlin/Java components integrating with LangChain4j, LlamaIndex, and LangChain — but they are platform components rather than independent third-party implementations of the LMOS Protocol specifically, since the protocol's own spec is still incomplete. What is unresolved: how much of the described three-layer protocol is actually implemented end-to-end today versus aspirational, given the spec's own "empty sections" caveat, and whether any organization outside the Eclipse LMOS core contributor group has implemented LMOS-protocol-compliant discovery against a production deployment.

## Discovery and probe

Three-layer protocol: Application layer defines a JSON-LD Agent/Tool Description Format (built on W3C Web of Things Thing Descriptions) plus DNS-SD/mDNS for local discovery and agent registries for global discovery; Identity layer uses W3C Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) to sign description documents

```
GET {origin}/.well-known/wot-thing-description
parse:     A JSON-LD document whose @context or @type references the LMOS namespace (https://eclipse.dev/lmos/protocol/v1) confirms an LMOS-described Thing; this well-known path is the W3C WoT discovery convention LMOS explicitly builds on, not yet a path LMOS itself mandates.
on absent: No response, or a WoT Thing Description without the LMOS namespace: this origin either doesn't participate in LMOS or (more likely for most origins) simply predates/ignores the still-draft protocol; the LMOS spec itself does not yet fix a single discovery path, so absence here is weak evidence.
```

Live check run by [the MCP probe](/mcp/server-card): GET /.well-known/wot-thing-description. An LMOS Thing Description references the LMOS namespace.

```
{
 "path": "/.well-known/wot-thing-description",
 "expect": {
  "text_match": "eclipse\\.dev/lmos"
 },
 "note": "An LMOS Thing Description references the LMOS namespace."
}
```

## History
- 2026-09-06 — added from arXiv 2504.16736 survey comparison, verified against eclipse.dev/lmos/, eclipse.dev/lmos/docs/lmos_protocol/introduction/, github.com/eclipse-lmos

## Instances

- [Deutsche Telekom (LMOS)](https://www.infoq.com/presentations/agentic-compute/) · Observed 2026-08-03 · business
- [Eclipse LMOS](https://github.com/eclipse-lmos/lmos-router) · Observed 2026-07-20 · registry
- [Eclipse LMOS project](https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.eclipse.lmos/lmos-runtime-spring-boot-starter) · Observed 2026-04-27 · service

Every instance with its source is listed on the [instances page](/instances/).

## See also

## References

- LMOS is an open-source, vendor-neutral platform for multi-agent systems built on Kubernetes, aiming at an 'Internet of Agents' where agents/tools from different organizations can be published, discovered and interconnected; it is a project of the Eclipse Foundation. — [https://eclipse.dev/lmos/](https://eclipse.dev/lmos/) (2026-09-06) VERIFIED
- The LMOS Protocol defines a three-layer architecture (Application/discovery+description, Transport, Identity+Security using W3C DIDs), is built on the W3C Web of Things architecture, and is explicitly stated by the project to be 'work in progress and contains empty sections' and 'not a W3C Standard nor on the W3C Standards Track.' — [https://eclipse.dev/lmos/docs/lmos_protocol/introduction/](https://eclipse.dev/lmos/docs/lmos_protocol/introduction/) (2026-09-06) VERIFIED
- The eclipse-lmos GitHub organization maintains 15 repositories (LMOS Operator, Runtime, Router, Arc framework, etc.) with recent commit activity (within days of this check), licensed Apache 2.0. — [https://github.com/eclipse-lmos](https://github.com/eclipse-lmos) (2026-09-06) VERIFIED

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