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Open Agent Specification (Agent Spec)

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Declarative language for portable agent definitions with built-in evaluation.

SpecificationDocs

Overview

How do you define an agent once and run it anywhere? Open Agent Specification provides a declarative language for portable agent definitions.

Key Innovation: Portability + Evaluation

Agent Spec solves two problems:

  1. Portability: Define agents that work across LangGraph, CrewAI, AutoGen, etc.
  2. Evaluation: Built-in harness for assessing agent behavior

Declarative Format

Instead of framework-specific code:

name: research-agent
description: Searches and synthesizes information
skills:
  - web-search
  - summarization
tools:
  - name: search
    endpoint: https://search.example.com/api
evaluation:
  benchmarks:
    - simpleqa-verified
    - bird-sql

Evaluation Harness

Agent Spec includes standardized evaluation across:

  • SimpleQA Verified: Factual accuracy
  • τ²-Bench: Task completion
  • BIRD-SQL: Database interaction

Results are comparable across frameworks.

Enterprise Integration

Oracle is integrating Agent Spec into:

  • Oracle Applied AI
  • Oracle Financial Services
  • Autonomous Database Select AI

AG-UI Integration

In late 2025, AG-UI integration was announced, allowing Agent Spec definitions to render directly in frontends.

Quick Info
Architecturespecification
Message FormatYAML/JSON
SDKsPython, TypeScript
Agent-to-Agent Features
Discovery
Negotiation
Streaming
Bidirectional
Multi-Agent
Ready to Evaluate?
Agent Playground
Test against real-world scenarios
RepKit
Reputation SDK for agents
Consulting
We'll implement it for you
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Related Resources
Evaluation Patterns Failure Modes
Strengths
  • True cross-framework portability
  • Built-in evaluation
  • Oracle enterprise backing
  • AG-UI integration
Considerations
  • New specification
  • Limited framework support
  • Oracle-centric initially
Tags
specificationevaluationportableenterprise
Back to Protocols

Compare with Other Protocols

Compare against:(2/2)
Open Agent Specification (Agent Spec)(current)
Strengths
Open Agent Specification (Agent Spec)
beta
  • True cross-framework portability
  • Built-in evaluation
  • Oracle enterprise backing
AG-UI Protocol
beta
  • Purpose-built for frontend integration
  • Human-in-the-loop patterns built-in
  • Framework-agnostic design
Agent Name Service (ANS)
experimental
  • Leverages existing DNS infrastructure
  • Cryptographic identity via PKI
  • Scalable and decentralized
Considerations
Open Agent Specification (Agent Spec)
  • • New specification
  • • Limited framework support
  • • Oracle-centric initially
AG-UI Protocol
  • • Frontend-specific scope
  • • No agent discovery
  • • Smaller community than MCP/A2A
Agent Name Service (ANS)
  • • Early draft stage
  • • Requires PKI infrastructure
  • • DNS propagation delays
Best For
Open Agent Specification (Agent Spec)
Portable agent definitionsAgent evaluationEnterprise agent deploymentFramework migration
AG-UI Protocol
AI-powered chat interfacesCollaborative document editingApproval workflow UIsReal-time agent dashboards
Agent Name Service (ANS)
Finding agents by capabilityVerifying agent identityCross-platform discovery
Technical Details
Open Agent Specification (Agent Spec)AG-UI ProtocolAgent Name Service (ANS)
Architecturespecificationevent-drivendistributed
Message FormatYAML/JSONJSON EventsDNS Records
Transport—SSE, WebSocket, HTTP WebhooksDNS
Version1.01.0draft-00
SDKsPython, TypeScriptTypeScript, Python, React—
Architecture
Open Agent Specification (Agent Spec)specification
AG-UI Protocolevent-driven
Agent Name Service (ANS)distributed
Message Format
Open Agent Specification (Agent Spec)YAML/JSON
AG-UI ProtocolJSON Events
Agent Name Service (ANS)DNS Records
Transport
Open Agent Specification (Agent Spec)—
AG-UI ProtocolSSE, WebSocket, HTTP Webhooks
Agent Name Service (ANS)DNS
Version
Open Agent Specification (Agent Spec)1.0
AG-UI Protocol1.0
Agent Name Service (ANS)draft-00
SDKs
Open Agent Specification (Agent Spec)Python, TypeScript
AG-UI ProtocolTypeScript, Python, React
Agent Name Service (ANS)—

All Protocols & Initiatives

9 standards documented
AG-UI Protocol

The standard for streaming AI agent interactions to user interfaces.

Supporters: CopilotKit, Microsoft, Google...
Agent Name Service (ANS)

DNS-based discovery system for AI agents with PKI trust.

Supporters: IETF Contributors
Agent Network Protocol (ANP)

Decentralized protocol for trustless agent discovery and collaboration.

Supporters: ANP Community, Academic Research
Agent Protocol

A standardized REST API specification for exposing AI agents as services.

Supporters: AI Engineer Foundation, AutoGPT, W3C Community Group
Agent-to-Agent Protocol (A2A)

The standard for AI agents to communicate, collaborate, and delegate tasks.

Supporters: Google, Microsoft, IBM...
Model Context Protocol (MCP)

The universal standard for connecting AI agents to external tools and data.

Supporters: Anthropic, OpenAI, Google...
NANDA

Framework for decentralized AI agent coordination and lifecycle management.

Supporters: MIT, Academic Research
Open Agent Specification (Agent Spec)(current)

Declarative language for portable agent definitions with built-in evaluation.

Supporters: Oracle, CopilotKit
Open Agentic Schema Framework (OASF)

Standardized schemas for defining AI agent capabilities and metadata.

Supporters: AGNTCY, Cisco (Outshift)