Agent Internet Protocol (AIP)

The Internet Protocol (IP, RFC 791) provides best-effort datagram delivery between hosts identified by numeric addresses. The Agent Internet Protocol (AIP) provides best-effort datagram delivery between autonomous AI agents identified by agent:// URIs -- human- readable, capability-descriptive names. AIP is designed to serve as the narrow waist of the Agent Network Protocol (ANP) suite, occupying an architectural position analogous to IP in the TCP/IP suite: a minimal common substrate through which upper-layer protocols and link technologies interoperate without direct coupling. This document specifies the AIP message format, addressing model, upper-layer protocol demultiplexing, TLV options, message processing rules, error handling, and interfaces to adjacent protocol layers. Name registration, distributed name resolution, and semantic discovery are provided by a companion resolver service and are outside the scope of this document.