Governance Gaps in Agent Interoperability Protocols: What MCP, A2A, and ACP Cannot Express

Abstract

Agent interoperability protocols (MCP, A2A, ACP, ANP, and ERC-8004) have rapidly matured to enable identity, capability discovery, tool access, and message exchange between autonomous agents. However, as enterprises deploy heterogeneous agent fleets that must make collective decisions under governance constraints, a question arises: can these protocols support governed agent communities, or only task-oriented coordination? We present a systematic gap analysis applying a six-dimension governance requirements taxonomy (membership, deliberation, voting, dissent preservation, human escalation, and audit/replay) derived from organizational theory, multi-agent systems literature, and enterprise governance standards. We analyze each protocol's specification against this taxonomy, classifying capabilities as Supported, Partial, or Absent. The resulting gap matrix reveals that voting and dissent preservation are universally absent across all five protocols, deliberation is absent or at most partial, and no protocol encodes the full set of primitives required for governed agent communities. We distinguish extensible gaps (addressable through protocol extension mechanisms) from structural gaps (requiring a new architectural layer) and assess time-sensitivity based on observed protocol evolution velocity. The analysis establishes that agent community governance constitutes a missing architectural layer above current interoperability standards, not a missing feature within them.