A survey of agent interoperability protocols: Model Context Protocol (MCP), Agent Communication Protocol (ACP), Agent-to-Agent Protocol (A2A), and Agent Network Protocol (ANP)

Abul Ehtesham, Aditi Singh, Gaurav Kumar Gupta, Saket Kumar
5/4/2025
cs.AI

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Abstract

Large language model powered autonomous agents demand robust, standardized protocols to integrate tools, share contextual data, and coordinate tasks across heterogeneous systems. Ad-hoc integrations are difficult to scale, secure, and generalize across domains. This survey examines four emerging agent communication protocols: Model Context Protocol (MCP), Agent Communication Protocol (ACP), Agent-to-Agent Protocol (A2A), and Agent Network Protocol (ANP), each addressing interoperability in deployment contexts. MCP provides a JSON-RPC client-server interface for secure tool invocation and typed data exchange. ACP defines a general-purpose communication protocol over RESTful HTTP, supporting MIME-typed multipart messages and synchronous and asynchronous interactions. Its lightweight and runtime-independent design enables scalable agent invocation, while features like session management, message routing, and integration with role-based and decentralized identifiers (DIDs). A2A enables peer-to-peer task delegation using capability-based Agent Cards, supporting secure and scalable collaboration across enterprise agent workflows. ANP supports open network agent discovery and secure collaboration using W3C decentralized identifiers DIDs and JSON-LD graphs. The protocols are compared across multiple dimensions, including interaction modes, discovery mechanisms, communication patterns, and security models. Based on the comparative analysis, a phased adoption roadmap is proposed: beginning with MCP for tool access, followed by ACP for structured, multimodal messaging session-aware interaction and both online and offline agent discovery across scalable, HTTP-based deployments A2A for collaborative task execution, and extending to ANP for decentralized agent marketplaces. This work provides a comprehensive foundation for designing secure, interoperable, and scalable ecosystems of LLM-powered agents.

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Cite this paper

@article{ehtesham2025survey,
  title  = {A survey of agent interoperability protocols: Model Context Protocol (MCP), Agent Communication Protocol (ACP), Agent-to-Agent Protocol (A2A), and Agent Network Protocol (ANP)},
  author = {Abul Ehtesham and Aditi Singh and Gaurav Kumar Gupta and Saket Kumar},
  year   = {2025},
  eprint = {2505.02279},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url    = {http://arxiv.org/abs/2505.02279v2}
}

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