A2A is a standardized framework designed to enable interoperability, discovery, and orchestration among independent artificial intelligence agents. It provides a common communication protocol that allows heterogeneous agents to exchange data, verify identities, and collaborate across diverse programming languages and computing environments. By establishing a unified messaging standard, the project facilitates the creation of complex, multi-agent workflows where tasks are routed and managed between specialized services.
The project distinguishes itself through a capability-based architecture that uses machine-readable metadata cards to advertise agent skills, security requirements, and interface definitions. This system supports dynamic service evaluation and automated discovery via well-known network paths. Furthermore, it incorporates a task-oriented state machine that manages long-running asynchronous operations, enabling incremental streaming of artifacts and status updates to maintain context across multi-turn interactions.
Beyond its core communication and orchestration capabilities, the framework includes robust infrastructure for security, observability, and traffic management. It supports multi-tenant deployments, granular authorization enforcement, and distributed tracing to ensure visibility and control within distributed agent networks. The platform also provides multi-language software development kits and extensible protocol tools to assist developers in building, registering, and scaling agent applications.
