A Layered Protocol Architecture for the Internet of Agents

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Fleming, Charles, Muscariello, Luca, Pandey, Vijoy, Kompella, Ramana
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Fleming, Charles
Muscariello, Luca
Pandey, Vijoy
Kompella, Ramana
author_facet Fleming, Charles
Muscariello, Luca
Pandey, Vijoy
Kompella, Ramana
contents Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable performance improvements and the ability to learn domain-specific languages (DSLs), including APIs and tool interfaces. This capability has enabled the creation of AI agents that can perform preliminary computations and act through tool calling, which is now being standardized via protocols like MCP. However, LLMs face fundamental limitations: their context windows cannot grow indefinitely, restricting their memory and computational capacity. Agent collaboration emerges as essential for solving increasingly complex problems, mirroring how computational systems rely on different types of memory to scale. The "Internet of Agents" (IoA) represents the communication stack that enables agents to scale by distributing computation across collaborating entities. Current network architectural stacks (OSI and TCP/IP) were designed for data delivery between hosts and processes, not for agent collaboration with semantic understanding. To address this gap, we propose two new layers: an Agent Communication Layer (L8) and an Agent Semantic Layer (L9). L8 formalizes the structure of communication, standardizing message envelopes, speech-act performatives (e.g., REQUEST, INFORM), and interaction patterns (e.g., request-reply, publish-subscribe), building on protocols like MCP. The proposed L9 layer: (1) formalizes semantic context discovery and negotiation, (2) provides semantic grounding by binding terms to semantic context, and (3) semantically validates incoming prompts and performs disambiguation as needed. Furthermore, L9 introduces primitives for coordination and consensus, allowing agents to achieve alignment on shared states, collective goals, and distributed beliefs. Together, these layers provide the foundation for scalable, distributed agent collaboration, enabling the next generation of multi-agentic systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_19699
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Layered Protocol Architecture for the Internet of Agents
Fleming, Charles
Muscariello, Luca
Pandey, Vijoy
Kompella, Ramana
Networking and Internet Architecture
Artificial Intelligence
Multiagent Systems
Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable performance improvements and the ability to learn domain-specific languages (DSLs), including APIs and tool interfaces. This capability has enabled the creation of AI agents that can perform preliminary computations and act through tool calling, which is now being standardized via protocols like MCP. However, LLMs face fundamental limitations: their context windows cannot grow indefinitely, restricting their memory and computational capacity. Agent collaboration emerges as essential for solving increasingly complex problems, mirroring how computational systems rely on different types of memory to scale. The "Internet of Agents" (IoA) represents the communication stack that enables agents to scale by distributing computation across collaborating entities. Current network architectural stacks (OSI and TCP/IP) were designed for data delivery between hosts and processes, not for agent collaboration with semantic understanding. To address this gap, we propose two new layers: an Agent Communication Layer (L8) and an Agent Semantic Layer (L9). L8 formalizes the structure of communication, standardizing message envelopes, speech-act performatives (e.g., REQUEST, INFORM), and interaction patterns (e.g., request-reply, publish-subscribe), building on protocols like MCP. The proposed L9 layer: (1) formalizes semantic context discovery and negotiation, (2) provides semantic grounding by binding terms to semantic context, and (3) semantically validates incoming prompts and performs disambiguation as needed. Furthermore, L9 introduces primitives for coordination and consensus, allowing agents to achieve alignment on shared states, collective goals, and distributed beliefs. Together, these layers provide the foundation for scalable, distributed agent collaboration, enabling the next generation of multi-agentic systems.
title A Layered Protocol Architecture for the Internet of Agents
topic Networking and Internet Architecture
Artificial Intelligence
Multiagent Systems
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.19699