About DARTC
An open protocol for the agentic web
DARTC defines how AI agents communicate in real time. It is MIT-licensed, community-governed, and designed to be a durable transport primitive — not a product.
Mission
AI agents will increasingly need to talk to one another — across runtimes, organisations, and trust boundaries. DARTC exists to define that conversation: a minimal, signed, verifiable transport that any conforming implementation can adopt without depending on a single vendor.
Design principles
Security first. Every frame is Ed25519-signed and replay-resistant before any routing or business logic applies.
Minimal surface. One JSON envelope type. No binary framing in v0.2. Complexity is added only when the use case demands it.
Standard-aligned. DARTC carries A2A objects without replacing A2A semantics, and leaves MCP as the tool-access layer.
Governance
DARTC is governed as an open standard. Decisions are made in public on GitHub via issues and pull requests. There is no commercial entity with unilateral authority over the specification. The goal is eventual transfer to a neutral standards body once the protocol stabilises.
Contributing
The specification source lives in github.com/apprider/dartc. Open an issue for questions, a pull request for proposed changes. Conformance tests and reference implementations are welcome.
Open Questions · v0.2
What we are still deciding
CBOR framing
Should DARTC standardise CBOR after the JSON v0.2 baseline is stable? We expect yes, but want real-world throughput data first.
Topic-level encryption
Sender keys, shared session keys, or an MLS-style group protocol? The right answer depends on multi-party session requirements.
A2A extension vs. formal binding
Should Agent Cards declare DARTC as an A2A extension or a first-class protocol binding?
Replay cache window
What is the correct minimum replay-cache window for browser-origin sessions? Browser clocks drift; we want a safe default.