Agent Protocol
Open numbered standards for the AI-agent ecosystem — like BIPs for Bitcoin or EIPs for Ethereum, but for agents. Goal — readability, operability, composability.
Agent Protocol
AIPs (Agent Improvement Proposals) are open numbered standards for the AI-agent ecosystem.
The model is the same one that built the internet and most working crypto stacks:
- BIPs — Bitcoin Improvement Proposals
- EIPs — Ethereum Improvement Proposals
- RFCs — Internet Engineering Task Force standards
- PEPs — Python Enhancement Proposals
Each AIP is a single document that defines one piece of the stack — a file format, a runtime contract, an orchestration primitive. AIPs reference each other (e.g. AIP-9 requires AIPs 3, 6, 7), build on each other, and graduate through a clear lifecycle: Draft → Review → Final → Superseded.
The goal is readability (specs anyone can read), operability (specs that running systems implement), and composability (specs that snap together rather than each running their own universe).
This is not a foundation, a community, or a vendor catalog — it's a process. Like every numbered-proposal system before it.
Browse the registry
| # | Title | Type | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIP-1 | Purpose & Process | Meta | Final |
| AIP-2 | AIP Template | Meta | Final |
| AIP-3 | SKILL.md — skill manifest format | Schema | Draft |
| AIP-4 | DESIGN.md — design token format | Schema | Draft |
| AIP-5 | CANVAKIT.md — template + data-source binding | Schema | Draft |
| AIP-6 | agentcompanies/v1 — company primitives | Core | Draft |
| AIP-7 | agentgovernance/v1 — audit & approval | Core | Draft |
| AIP-8 | agentagencies/v1 — agency engine | Core | Draft |
| AIP-9 | agentoperators/v1 — operator runtime protocol | Core | Draft |
Categories
- Meta — process & registry governance (AIPs 1–2)
- Schema — file formats agents and tools consume (AIPs 3–5)
- Core — runtime, governance, and orchestration primitives (AIPs 6–9)
Submit an AIP
Read AIP-1 for the full process, then copy AIP-2 as your starting template. PRs land in the public spec repo at github.com/agentproto/specs.
Related standards
AIPs aren't built in isolation — see the Related Standards & Initiatives page for the peer specifications (MCP, A2A, AGNTCY, AITP, Anthropic Skills, OTel GenAI, W3C VCs, OpenAPI, DTCG, Olas, Fetch.ai, …) that AIPs defer to, build on, or run adjacent to.