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The A2A Protocol
Agent-to-Agent Communication
While MCP connects agents to tools and data, the A2A (Agent-to-Agent) protocol connects agents to other agents. Introduced by Google, A2A is an open standard for cross-vendor agent interoperability.
Why A2A?
Imagine a Claude agent that needs to book a flight. There's already a specialized travel agent (built with OpenAI). Without A2A, you'd need to build custom integration code. With A2A, the Claude agent discovers the travel agent, understands its capabilities, and delegates the task - all through a standardized protocol.
MCP vs A2A
| Dimension | MCP | A2A |
|---|---|---|
| Connects | Agent ↔ Tools/Data | Agent ↔ Agent |
| Analogy | USB-C (plug in peripherals) | HTTP (services talk to services) |
| Discovery | .well-known/mcp | .well-known/agent-card.json |
| Interaction | Request/Response (tool calls) | Peer-to-peer task delegation |
| Governed by | Linux Foundation | Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF) under the Linux Foundation |
💡 Key Insight: MCP and A2A are complementary, not competing. An agent uses MCP to connect to databases and APIs, and A2A to delegate tasks to specialized agents. Together they form the full interoperability stack.
SYNAPSE VERIFICATION
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What does the A2A protocol enable?
Agents connecting to databases
Agents communicating and delegating tasks to other agents across different vendors
Agents generating images
Agents training themselves