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45. Agent Network Protocol (ANP)

Mini-Project: ANP: Decentralized Identity + Mutual Trust Verification

Two agents with independent DIDs exchange DID documents, mutually verify each other via HMAC-based signing (no central authority), then communicate with cryptographically signed messages — demonstrating tamper detection for invalid signatures.

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What It Is

The Agent Network Protocol (ANP) is an open protocol designed for large-scale, open agent networks where agents from different organizations discover and interact over the internet. ANP uses Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) for agent identity and Verifiable Credentials (VCs) for trust establishment, making it suitable for open, trustless environments where billions of agents need to find, trust, and collaborate with each other.

Who Created It / Governed By

Created by the ANP Community (2025). Open-source specification building on W3C standards for DIDs and VCs. Focused on decentralized, internet-scale agent networking.

How It Works

sequenceDiagram
    participant AgentA as Agent A (DID: did:web:a)
    participant Network as Agent Network
    participant AgentB as Agent B (DID: did:web:b)

    AgentA->>Network: Publish Agent Description (DID Doc)
    AgentB->>Network: Publish Agent Description (DID Doc)
    AgentA->>Network: Search for capability
    Network-->>AgentA: Found: Agent B (verified DID)
    AgentA->>AgentB: Establish secure channel (DID auth)
    AgentB-->>AgentA: Signed response

Key Features

Feature Description
Decentralized Identity DIDs (W3C standard) for agent identification
Verifiable Credentials Trust establishment without central authority
Agent Description Rich capability descriptions linked to DIDs
Meta-Protocol Agents negotiate communication protocols dynamically
Internet-Scale Designed for billions of agents across organizations
Privacy Selective disclosure of agent capabilities

Protocol Comparison

Feature MCP A2A ACP ANP
Created By Anthropic Google IBM / BeeAI ANP Community
Focus Model-to-tool Agent-to-agent Agent communication Internet-scale networking
Discovery Server capabilities Agent Cards Agent registry DID-based
Transport stdio, HTTP+SSE HTTP, SSE REST API HTTP, DID resolution
Identity N/A (local) Agent Cards Registration DIDs + VCs
Scale Local/organization Organization Organization Internet-scale
Best For Tool integration Cross-vendor agent collab Framework interop Open agent networks
Maturity Production (2024) Early adoption (2025) Early (2025) Specification (2025)