]> Vulture Labs

calin@vulturelabs.com

Internet Independent Submission AI agents --- autonomous software entities capable of reasoning, planning, and executing tasks --- are an increasingly important class of network participant. Current agent communication protocols operate exclusively at the application layer over HTTP, assuming the existence of stable endpoints, DNS names, and centralized infrastructure. No existing standard provides network-layer identity, addressing, or transport for agents. This document describes the problem space and identifies requirements for a network-layer infrastructure that would give agents first-class network citizenship, independent of the web infrastructure designed for human users.

Introduction The internet's protocol stack was designed for human-operated devices with stable network attachments. IP addresses identify interfaces, DNS names identify services, and TLS certificates identify organizations. These assumptions break down for AI agents, which are transient software processes that may run behind NAT, migrate between hosts, and lack persistent network identity. Recent standardization efforts for agent communication --- notably MCP (agent-to-tool) and A2A (agent-to-agent) --- have focused on application-layer protocols built on HTTP. These protocols define what agents say to each other but assume the underlying problem of how agents reach each other is already solved. For agents running in cloud environments with public endpoints, this assumption holds. For agents running on edge devices, behind corporate firewalls, on laptops, or in heterogeneous multi-cloud deployments, it does not. The IETF has seen significant activity in AI agent protocol standardization, with over a dozen drafts filed in 2025-2026 (see , , ). Every one of these drafts operates at the application layer over HTTP. None addresses the network or transport layer. This document describes the problem of network-layer infrastructure for autonomous agent communication, identifies the gaps in existing protocols, and states requirements for a solution. It is modeled after , which performed a similar analysis for network virtualization overlays.

Terminology The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.

Agent:

An autonomous software entity capable of reasoning, planning, and executing tasks without continuous human supervision. An agent may run as a process, container, or serverless function.

Overlay Network:

A virtual network built on top of an existing network (the underlay). Overlay nodes communicate using encapsulated packets carried over the underlay.

Virtual Address:

A network address assigned within the overlay address space, independent of the underlay IP address. A virtual address identifies an agent, not a network interface.

Registry:

A service that assigns virtual addresses, maintains an address-to-locator mapping table, and provides bootstrap information for overlay participants.

Trust Handshake:

A protocol exchange through which two agents establish a bilateral trust relationship with explicit mutual consent.

Problem Description

Agent Identity Is Coupled to Infrastructure In current practice, agents are identified by URLs, DNS names, or API endpoints --- all of which are tied to the infrastructure hosting the agent, not to the agent itself. When an agent migrates to a different host, changes cloud provider, or restarts behind a different NAT binding, its identity changes. There is no stable identifier that follows an agent across these transitions. This is analogous to the identity/locator conflation problem in IP networking, which motivated the Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP) . In LISP, Endpoint Identifiers (EIDs) are separated from Routing Locators (RLOCs) so that an endpoint's identity is independent of its network attachment point. Agents need the same separation: a permanent identity that is independent of the transient infrastructure hosting them. The A2A protocol identifies agents via "Agent Cards" served at well-known HTTPS URLs. This requires the agent to maintain a stable, publicly reachable web endpoint --- a requirement that excludes agents running on edge devices, behind NAT, or in ephemeral compute environments.

No Peer-to-Peer Communication Without Web Infrastructure Both MCP and A2A require HTTP endpoints for communication. This means every agent must either have a publicly routable IP address or be fronted by a reverse proxy, load balancer, or API gateway. For two agents behind NAT to communicate, at least one must provision web infrastructure as an intermediary. NAT traversal is a solved problem for specific domains: WebRTC handles it for browsers (at the cost of ICE/DTLS-SRTP/SDP negotiation complexity), and WireGuard handles it for VPN tunnels. But no existing protocol provides NAT traversal specifically designed for agent-to-agent communication, with agent-native addressing and trust semantics. An estimated 88% of real-world network environments involve some form of NAT. Agents running on laptops, IoT devices, edge servers, and mobile phones cannot participate in HTTP-based agent protocols without significant infrastructure provisioning.

No Agent-Native Trust Model Existing trust models were designed for different participants: TLS: Trust is anchored in Certificate Authorities. Agents would need to obtain and manage X.509 certificates, adding operational complexity disproportionate to many agent interactions. SSH: Trust-on-first-use (TOFU) assumes a human operator who can verify a host key fingerprint. Autonomous agents have no human in the loop. OAuth/OIDC: Designed for user-to-service authorization, not peer-to-peer agent trust. Requires an authorization server as a trusted third party. None of these models provide bilateral consent --- the property that both parties must explicitly agree before a communication relationship is established. For autonomous entities that may be operated by different organizations, bilateral consent is a natural trust primitive: neither agent should be reachable by the other until both have agreed.

No Lightweight Transport for Agent Streams TCP and QUIC are general-purpose transports optimized for web traffic patterns (request-response, large transfers, multiplexed streams). Agent communication patterns differ: Many agents exchange small, frequent messages (status updates, task delegations, sensor readings) where connection setup overhead dominates. Agents often maintain long-lived bidirectional streams for event-driven architectures, where TCP's head-of-line blocking is problematic. Agents may need port-based service multiplexing (echo on one port, task submission on another, events on a third) --- a concept that exists in TCP/UDP but has no equivalent in HTTP-based agent protocols. While QUIC addresses head-of-line blocking through multiplexed streams, it does not provide agent addressing, discovery, or trust semantics. A transport designed for agents could provide these as built-in capabilities rather than requiring them to be layered on top.

Privacy Gaps in Agent Discovery Current agent discovery mechanisms are designed for visibility: A2A Agent Cards are intended to be publicly discoverable at well-known URLs. DNS-SD and mDNS broadcast service availability to all listeners on a network segment. HTTP-based service registries typically allow any authenticated client to enumerate all registered services. For agents, the default should be the opposite. An agent's existence and capabilities should not be disclosed to parties that have not been explicitly authorized. Mass enumeration of agent endpoints creates attack surface (reconnaissance for exploitation) and privacy risks (mapping an organization's agent infrastructure). A privacy-by-default discovery model --- where agents are invisible until they explicitly opt in to specific peer relationships --- has no equivalent in current standards.

Requirements for a Solution Based on the problems identified above, a network-layer infrastructure for agent communication should satisfy the following requirements:

Virtual Addressing

REQ-1:

Agents MUST receive stable virtual addresses that are independent of their underlying IP address, network attachment point, and hosting infrastructure.

REQ-2:

The addressing scheme MUST support hierarchical grouping (e.g., network or topic-based segmentation) to enable scoped communication boundaries.

NAT Traversal

REQ-3:

The system MUST provide automatic NAT traversal without requiring manual configuration of port forwarding, firewall rules, or relay proxies by the agent operator.

REQ-4:

NAT traversal MUST support direct peer-to-peer communication where possible, with transparent relay fallback when direct communication is not achievable.

Bilateral Trust Model

REQ-5:

Communication between agents MUST require explicit bilateral consent. Neither agent should be reachable by the other until both have agreed to establish a trust relationship.

REQ-6:

Trust relationships MUST be revocable. Revoking trust MUST immediately prevent further communication.

Lightweight Encrypted Transport

REQ-7:

The transport MUST provide reliable, ordered byte stream delivery (TCP-equivalent) and unreliable datagram delivery (UDP-equivalent) over the overlay.

REQ-8:

Encryption MUST be enabled by default for all data in transit, with no opt-in required from the agent developer.

REQ-9:

The transport MUST support port-based service multiplexing, allowing an agent to expose multiple services on different virtual ports.

Privacy-by-Default Discovery

REQ-10:

Agents MUST be private by default. An agent's virtual address, physical locator, and capabilities MUST NOT be disclosed to parties without an established trust relationship or shared group membership.

REQ-11:

It MUST be possible to establish trust with a private agent without first knowing its physical network location (i.e., via a trusted relay or rendezvous mechanism).

Existing Approaches and Gaps

MCP (Model Context Protocol) MCP standardizes the interface between AI models and external tools/resources. It uses JSON-RPC over HTTP with Server-Sent Events for streaming. MCP addresses agent-to-tool communication, not agent-to-agent communication, and provides no network-layer capabilities. It assumes agents can reach tool servers via HTTP.

A2A (Agent-to-Agent Protocol) A2A defines a protocol for agent interoperability: Agent Cards for discovery, task lifecycle management, and multimodal message exchange. A2A operates entirely over HTTP/HTTPS. It provides no NAT traversal, no overlay addressing, no built-in encryption beyond TLS, and no bilateral trust model. It assumes agents have reachable HTTP endpoints.

WebRTC WebRTC provides peer-to-peer communication with NAT traversal via ICE, encryption via DTLS-SRTP, and data channels via SCTP. However, WebRTC was designed for browser-based audio/video communication. Its complexity (ICE candidate gathering, SDP offer/answer negotiation, DTLS-SRTP key exchange) is disproportionate for agent message exchange. WebRTC also lacks agent-specific concepts like virtual addressing, bilateral trust, and privacy-by-default discovery.

QUIC QUIC provides a modern transport with multiplexed streams, built-in encryption, and reduced connection setup latency. QUIC addresses transport-layer concerns but does not provide overlay addressing, agent identity, NAT traversal coordination, trust management, or discovery. It is a potential underlay transport for an agent overlay, not a complete solution.

libp2p libp2p is a modular networking stack developed for decentralized applications, particularly in the blockchain ecosystem. It provides peer identity (via cryptographic keypairs), NAT traversal, and transport multiplexing. libp2p is the closest existing system to the requirements stated above. However, it uses unstructured peer IDs (not hierarchical addresses), is heavyweight (large dependency tree), is oriented toward content-addressed distributed systems rather than agent communication patterns, and lacks built-in bilateral trust or privacy-by- default semantics.

WireGuard WireGuard provides encrypted point-to-point tunnels with excellent performance. It uses Curve25519 for key exchange and ChaCha20- Poly1305 for encryption. WireGuard establishes tunnels between known peers with pre-shared public keys --- it does not provide dynamic discovery, agent addressing, or trust negotiation. It is a VPN, not an agent network.

LISP The Locator/ID Separation Protocol separates endpoint identity from network location, providing a conceptual precedent for agent addressing. LISP's EID-to-RLOC mapping system is architecturally similar to an agent registry that maps virtual addresses to physical locators. However, LISP operates at the IP layer for routing optimization, not at the application layer for agent communication. It does not provide agent-specific trust models, privacy semantics, or built-in services.

Security Considerations A network-layer infrastructure for agents introduces security considerations beyond those of traditional overlay networks:

Centralized Registry:

A registry that assigns addresses and maintains locator mappings is a trusted third party. Compromise of the registry could allow address hijacking, locator spoofing, or metadata harvesting. The registry should support authentication, access control, and replication for high availability.

Overlay Header Metadata:

Even with payload encryption, overlay packet headers may expose source and destination virtual addresses, port numbers, and packet sizes. Traffic analysis on the overlay is possible even when the underlay is encrypted.

Trust Model Assumptions:

A bilateral trust model assumes that agents can make informed consent decisions. If an agent's trust logic is compromised (e.g., by adversarial prompt injection), it may approve trust relationships it should reject. The trust model provides a mechanism, not a policy --- the security of trust decisions depends on the agent's reasoning capability.

Key Management:

Overlay encryption requires key exchange between peers. Anonymous key exchange (without identity binding) is vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks. Authenticated key exchange requires a mechanism to distribute and verify public keys, which depends on the registry's integrity.

IANA Considerations This document has no IANA actions.

In many standards track documents several words are used to signify the requirements in the specification. These words are often capitalized. This document defines these words as they should be interpreted in IETF documents. This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. RFC 2119 specifies common key words that may be used in protocol specifications. This document aims to reduce the ambiguity by clarifying that only UPPERCASE usage of the key words have the defined special meanings. This document describes issues associated with providing multi-tenancy in large data center networks and how these issues may be addressed using an overlay-based network virtualization approach. A key multi-tenancy requirement is traffic isolation so that one tenant's traffic is not visible to any other tenant. Another requirement is address space isolation so that different tenants can use the same address space within different virtual networks. Traffic and address space isolation is achieved by assigning one or more virtual networks to each tenant, where traffic within a virtual network can only cross into another virtual network in a controlled fashion (e.g., via a configured router and/or a security gateway). Additional functionality is required to provision virtual networks, associating a virtual machine's network interface(s) with the appropriate virtual network and maintaining that association as the virtual machine is activated, migrated, and/or deactivated. Use of an overlay-based approach enables scalable deployment on large network infrastructures. This document defines the core of the QUIC transport protocol. QUIC provides applications with flow-controlled streams for structured communication, low-latency connection establishment, and network path migration. QUIC includes security measures that ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability in a range of deployment circumstances. Accompanying documents describe the integration of TLS for key negotiation, loss detection, and an exemplary congestion control algorithm. This document describes the data plane protocol for the Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP). LISP defines two namespaces: Endpoint Identifiers (EIDs), which identify end hosts; and Routing Locators (RLOCs), which identify network attachment points. With this, LISP effectively separates control from data and allows routers to create overlay networks. LISP-capable routers exchange encapsulated packets according to EID-to-RLOC mappings stored in a local Map-Cache. LISP requires no change to either host protocol stacks or underlay routers and offers Traffic Engineering (TE), multihoming, and mobility, among other features. This document obsoletes RFC 6830. This document describes the control plane and Mapping Service for the Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP), implemented by two types of LISP-speaking devices -- the LISP Map-Resolver and LISP Map-Server -- that provide a simplified "front end" for one or more Endpoint IDs (EIDs) to Routing Locator mapping databases. By using this control plane service interface and communicating with Map-Resolvers and Map-Servers, LISP Ingress Tunnel Routers (ITRs) and Egress Tunnel Routers (ETRs) are not dependent on the details of mapping database systems; this behavior facilitates modularity with different database designs. Since these devices implement the "edge" of the LISP control plane infrastructure, connecting EID addressable nodes of a LISP site, the implementation and operational complexity of the overall cost and effort of deploying LISP is reduced. This document obsoletes RFCs 6830 and 6833. Anthropic Google Protocol Labs

Acknowledgments The author thanks the participants of the IETF AI protocols discussions for their contributions to understanding the agent communication landscape.