A2A
Welcome — this is the practitioner lens on agent-to-agent work. Not “I invented the protocols.” How to use them: agents talking to agents, accepting work, and settling payments across vendor boundaries.
The problem
Agents are built on different frameworks by different vendors. Without a shared language they stay siloed. Tools, collaboration, and payments are separate jobs — so the stack splits into complementary layers instead of one mega-protocol that tries to do everything.
Protocol stack
MCP + A2A + AP2 compose. They are not competitors — each owns a different layer of the agent economy.
Agent ↔ tools / context
MCP · Model Context Protocol
Equip one agent with tools, APIs, and resources so it can do real work.
Agent ↔ agent
A2A · Agent2Agent Protocol
Discovery, delegation, and opaque interoperability between independent agents.
Agent ↔ money
AP2 · Agent Payments Protocol
Mandates and verifiable intent so agents can initiate payments with scoped authorization.
Optional rails
x402 · Payment extensions
Micropayment and crypto-style settlement patterns used alongside A2A / AP2 demos.
Learning & what you can do
Start hands-on, then connect to the platforms where these protocols show up in product form. Deeper guides are coming — building in public.
Curriculum Phase 04
Build a multi-agent demo with A2A discovery, task delegation, x402 payment gates, AP2 mandates, and a real-time protocol dashboard.
Open the curriculum→Orchestrator Bridge
External agent-to-agent communication for inbound and outbound interoperability on the enterprise platform.
See Orchestrator Enterprise→Protocol Lab
A playground for protocol, trust, identity, payment, transport, and resilience experiments inside Orchestrator AI.
Explore the product map→Coming next on this site
Deeper walkthroughs for mandates, discovery, and payment acceptance — plus notes on staying current as A2A and AP2 evolve. Until then, Phase 04 of the curriculum is the best place to get your hands dirty.