Agent Discovery eXchange (AX)

As AI agents move from isolated tools to distributed, autonomous systems, a new problem is becoming impossible to ignore:

How do agents discover each other, understand capabilities, and interoperate across organizational boundaries?

Today, there is no internet-native answer.

Integrations are hard-coded. Capabilities are documented out-of-band. Federation is bespoke. Governance is fragile.

That’s the gap Agent Discovery Exchange (AX) is intended to address.

The Missing Layer in Agent Systems

We already have:

• DNS for locating services
• HTTPS for exchanging structured information
• Mature and nascent execution protocols (REST, GraphQL, MCP, A2A, ACP)

What we don’t have is a standard way for an agent to say:

• Who I am
• What I can do
• How you can talk to me
• Under what constraints and trust assumptions

AX introduces that missing discovery and capability exchange layer, without redefining how agents execute.

What AX Is (and Isn’t)

AX is:

• A lightweight, protocol-agnostic discovery mechanism
• Built on existing internet standards
• Decentralized by design
• Execution-neutral

AX is not:

• A new agent protocol
• A registry
• A governance authority
• A replacement for MCP, A2A, REST, or GraphQL

AX exists to enable those protocols to interoperate dynamically.

How It Works (Conceptually)

At a high level:

1. An agent publishes a small, machine-readable document at a well-known HTTPS location
2. That document describes:
   • Supported interaction protocols
   • High-level capabilities
   • Optional constraints and trust signals
3. Other agents or supervisors and arbiters retrieve the document
4. Local policy decides if and how to interact

No central registry. No global authority. No mandatory semantics.

Agent Discovery Exchange (AX) enables agents to discover capabilities and negotiate interaction protocols before execution begins.

Status and Next Steps

AX is early, evolving, and intentionally scoped.

It is published as Internet-Draft–style documents to:

• Encourage discussion
• Enable experimentation
• Invite independent implementation

Feedback, critique, and alternative designs are welcome.

Why Multiple Drafts?

AX is being developed as a series of Internet-Drafts, each layering additional capability, starting with core discovery, then planning for:

• Operational stability
• Trust and constraints
• Federation and feedback

This is intentional.

Discovery must stand on its own before trust, governance, and federation are layered on top. Each draft is independently useful and open to critique.

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Learn More

GitHub repository: https://github.com/sempfa/agent-discovery-exchange
First draft: draft-agent-discovery-00.md
Second draft: draft-agent-discovery-01.md
Issues and discussions: open

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Final Thought

Agentic AI systems are becoming distributed systems of intelligence.

Without a shared discovery layer, interoperability will remain bespoke, fragile, and centralized by accident.

AX is a small step toward fixing that, using the internet we already have.