Define AI Registry Federation Protocol (RFP) Specification

[aarora79]

Summary

Define a formal protocol specification for peer-to-peer registry federation, enabling any AI registry implementation to participate in federated discovery regardless of their underlying technology stack.

Background

We currently have a working federation API implementation, but it exists only as code. To enable interoperability with other registry implementations, we need to extract and formalize this into a protocol specification that can be implemented by any registry.

Why This Matters

Reason	Benefit
Interoperability	Other AI registries (community or commercial) could federate with us if they implement the same protocol
Standardization	Aligns with the broader AI protocol ecosystem (such as MCP, A2A) which are defining formal specs
Documentation	A spec serves as authoritative documentation for our own federation features
Community	Opens the door for community contributions and alternative implementations

Protocol Overview

The federation protocol would define:

Component	Description
Registry Card	Discovery document (like A2A's Agent Card) at /.well-known/rfp
Export Operations	How registries expose servers/agents/skills/prompts for federation
Sync Semantics	Generation-based incremental sync, orphan handling, chain prevention
Authentication	OAuth2/OIDC and static bearer token support
Push Notifications	Optional webhooks for real-time updates (v1.1)

Alignment with MCP and A2A

The specification would follow patterns established by:

• MCP (Model Context Protocol) - RFC 2119 normative language, JSON Schema
• A2A (Agent-to-Agent Protocol) - Layered architecture (Data Model, Operations, Bindings)

┌───────────────┐     ┌─────────────┐     ┌─────────────────┐
│      MCP      │     │     A2A     │     │   AI Registry   │
│ Agent ↔ Tools │     │Agent ↔ Agent│     │   Federation    │
│               │     │             │     │Registry↔Registry│
└───────────────┘     └─────────────┘     └─────────────────┘

Deliverables

• Protocol specification document (RFC-style markdown)
• JSON Schemas for all data models
• Sequence diagrams for key flows
• Compliance checklist for implementers
• Update existing API to serve Registry Card at well-known endpoint

Sync Model

• v1.0: Pull-based (registries poll peers on schedule)
• v1.1: Optional push via webhooks for real-time notifications

References

• MCP Specification
• A2A Protocol Specification
• Current implementation: registry/api/federation_export_routes.py, registry/api/peer_management_routes.py