The Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF), which the Linux Foundation hosts, said on 17 August 2026 that the Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol is joining it as a hosted project.[1] The foundation's public proposal record shows that its Technical Committee approved A2A as a Growth Stage project on 15 July and its Governing Board approved it on 4 August.[3] The A2A project announced the move on its own blog on 27 August.[2]
A2A is an open standard for communication between agents built on different frameworks or by different vendors. An agent publishes an agent card, a structured description of what it can do and how to reach it. According to AAIF, other agents read the card and delegate tasks to that agent without a person coordinating the handoff.[1]
Google launched A2A in April 2025 and donated it to the Linux Foundation. The first stable specification, version 1.0, followed in March 2026. AAIF says more than 150 organizations back the protocol.[1]
At AAIF, A2A sits beside the Model Context Protocol (MCP). The A2A project says MCP connects agents to internal tools and databases, while A2A lets agents collaborate as peers.[2]
AAIF presents signed agent cards as a way to verify identity cryptographically.[1] Under the specification, a provider may sign its card with a JSON Web Signature (JWS). The signature lets a client check that the card has not been altered and comes from the claimed provider. To verify a signature, a client retrieves the public key from a URL in the signature's header or from its own store of trusted keys. Signing is optional, and the specification says clients should verify at least one signature before trusting a card.[4]
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