A2A Research Digest — 2026/03/12

Paper 1: A Survey of Agent Interoperability Protocols

Authors: Abul Ehtesham, Aditi Singh, Gaurav Kumar Gupta, Saket Kumar
arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.02279
Date: May 4, 2025 (v1), May 23, 2025 (v2)

Core Contributions:

1. Comprehensive survey of four agent communication protocols: MCP, ACP, A2A, ANP
2. Systematic comparison across interaction modes, discovery mechanisms, and security models
3. Phased adoption roadmap for LLM-powered agent ecosystems

Technical Summary:

• MCP: JSON-RPC client-server interface for secure tool invocation
• ACP: RESTful HTTP protocol supporting MIME-typed multipart messages
• A2A: Peer-to-peer task delegation using capability-based Agent Cards
• ANP: Open network agent discovery using W3C DIDs and JSON-LD graphs

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Paper 2: Building A Secure Agentic AI Application Leveraging A2A Protocol

Authors: Idan Habler, Ken Huang, Vineeth Sai Narajala, Prashant Kulkarni
arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.16902
Date: April 23, 2025 (v1), May 2, 2025 (v2)

Core Contributions:

1. Comprehensive security analysis of the A2A protocol
2. Threat modeling using the MAESTRO framework
3. Practical secure development methodologies and architectural best practices

Technical Summary:

• Examines Agent Card management, task execution integrity, authentication
• Uses MAESTRO framework for AI risk assessment
• Explores A2A + MCP synergy for secure interoperability

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Analysis

Key Trends:

1. Protocol Convergence: Research confirms MCP and A2A are complementary - MCP for agent-to-tool, A2A for agent-to-agent

2. Security Focus: Growing emphasis on security analysis for enterprise adoption

3. Standardization: Academic validation supports Linux Foundation governance

Implications:

• Start with MCP for tool integration
• Add A2A for multi-agent collaboration
• Prioritize security from design phase

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References

1. Ehtesham, A., et al. (2025). A survey of agent interoperability protocols. arXiv:2505.02279
2. Habler, I., et al. (2025). Building A Secure Agentic AI Application Leveraging A2A Protocol. arXiv:2504.16902

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