Re: Discussion on agent discovery mechanisms — do you have any better proposals?

Hi,
[1] is worth a read also if you have not already. It is MCP, started back in 2024, but it is discussing discovery and shows some alternative registry less ways to do lookup towards the end that may evolve. I’ve seen examples towards the end in the wild with rel links. Only mcp todate, not limited to Shopify.
Best Regards
Ian

1 https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/modelcontextprotocol/discussions/1147



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From: Gaowei Chang <chgaowei@gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, 9 October 2025 at 12:55
To: Daveed <daveed@bridgit.io>
Cc: Alan Karp <alanhkarp@gmail.com>, george <george@practicalidentity.com>, public-agentprotocol <public-agentprotocol@w3.org>
Subject: Re: Discussion on agent discovery mechanisms — do you have any better proposals?


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@Ian Boston : The hybrid approach you proposed is quite interesting.

Since the DNS and .well-known pointer–based method would make it difficult to crawl all domains across the internet at the very beginning to find every agent, a registry is indeed needed initially to help agents discover one another.

However, such a registry service could also be developed as a commercial service.
The MCP Registry, on the other hand, is a community service, and I’m not sure whether its sub-registries are intended to be commercial offerings.

@Daveed：The fourth approach you proposed is very innovative.

Perhaps you could add a use case example to make it easier to understand — I’m not entirely sure whether my understanding matches yours.

For instance, when you mention “space,” what exactly do you mean?
If it refers to a web page, does that mean there would be multiple agent links appearing on the same page?


@Alan Karp ：In addition, intent publishing is indeed an important feature.

However, if agents can already discover one another, they will naturally be able to discover the intents that others have published.
Therefore, agent discovery might still be the problem that needs to be solved first.

On Thu, Oct 9, 2025 at 12:02 AM Daveed <daveed@bridgit.io<mailto:daveed@bridgit.io>> wrote:

Thanks, George and Alan - both of your points sharpen this nicely.

Yes, I do think of the “fourth model” as a kind of just-in-time discovery, but one that happens within context, rather than only through a global lookup. It’s less like searching a directory, and more like noticing who (or what) is co-present in the same room, with the option to interact based on relevance and consent.

To George’s question: I see trust as orthogonal to discovery, but adjacent. Discovery might surface the fact of presence, while trust governs the terms of interaction. For example, a client might notice an MCP agent is “here” via overlay or signal, but any meaningful engagement could still require mutual proof, policy negotiation, or scoped permissions. These could be brokered by the MCP protocol itself or governed via community-defined rules (like trust tags or consent stacks).

And Alan, I really appreciate your point about intent publishing. I see “in-place presence” as one substrate for intent-aware matchmaking. If agents can both express capabilities and be visible in relevant contexts, we can move toward shared presence-based coordination, where agents and humans encounter each other through overlapping focus and published goals, not just search queries.

This allows for both pull-based discovery (someone finds an agent) and push-based ambient matchmaking (agents surface in context when relevant). I see a lot of potential synergy between the two.

Daveed Benjamin
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---- On Wed, 08 Oct 2025 08:53:10 -0700 Alan Karp <alanhkarp@gmail.com<mailto:alanhkarp@gmail.com>> wrote ---

In addition to agents publishing the things they can do, users and agents can publish their intents, the things they want done.  It then becomes a matter of matchmaking, which is somewhat different from discovery.

--------------
Alan Karp


On Wed, Oct 8, 2025 at 8:34 AM <george@practicalidentity.com<mailto:george@practicalidentity.com>> wrote:

Is it fair to consider this “fourth” model a “just in time” discovery kind of mechanism? If so, how is the trust established between the client and the MCP Server? Or is “trust” considered orthogonal to the discovery aspect?

George Fletcher
Identity Standards Architect
Practical Identity LLC



On Oct 8, 2025, at 10:22 AM, Daveed <daveed@bridgit.io<mailto:daveed@bridgit.io>> wrote:

Gaowei Chang,

As a fourth approach, I’d like to propose supporting agent discovery through contextual presence—allowing people and agents to become visible to one another directly in relation to the same web content or interaction space. Instead of requiring centralized registration or domain-level declarations, this model enables agents to “show up” where they are active or relevant, such as on a specific page, app, or dataset. It gives both humans and agents the ability to discover one another in place, based on shared focus or attention. Presence could be ambient, filtered, and consent-based—supporting real-time encounters, asynchronous trails, or mission-driven proximity. This could be a powerful complement to registries: a way to meet the right agent at the right time, exactly where and when it matters.

Daveed Benjamin
Founder
Bridgit.io<http://bridgit.io/>
daveed@bridgit.io
daveed@nos.social
+1 (510) 326-2803 (Whatsapp)
+1 (510) 373-3244 (Voicemail)
Book meeting<https://daveed-bridgit.zohobookings.com/#/customer/shiftshapr>

The Metaweb - The Next Level of the Internet<https://bridgit.io/metaweb-book> was published by Taylor & Francis in late November, 2023.




---- On Thu, 25 Sep 2025 19:10:57 -0700 Gaowei Chang <chgaowei@gmail.com<mailto:chgaowei@gmail.com>> wrote ---


Dear all,

I originally wanted to discuss the issue of agent discovery at our last meeting, but we ran out of time. Let’s continue the discussion here by email. I have outlined three main approaches and would like to hear your thoughts:

1. Based on RFC 8615 (.well-known path)

Place a standardized file under the domain’s /.well-known/ path to declare the agents available under that domain.

  *   Pros: Mature standard, easy to deploy, compatible with DNS/TLS, decentralized.

  *   Cons: Limited to existing domains, lacks global indexing, less friendly for individual users without domains.

2. Global Registration Center

Establish a centralized registry for agents, such as an MCP Registry or an Agent Name Service (ANS).

  *   Pros: Strong discoverability, good user experience, standardized naming and classification, easier governance.

  *   Cons: Higher centralization risks, requires governance and maintenance, may introduce entry barriers, scalability challenges.

3. Blockchain-like Decentralized Approach

Use decentralized infrastructures such as blockchain, DHT, IPFS, or ENS to store and discover agent information.

  *   Pros: Decentralized, censorship-resistant, data integrity, global discoverability, can integrate with DID/VC systems.

  *   Cons: Complex to implement, performance and cost issues, ecosystem still immature.

Which approach do you prefer?


Best regards,
Gaowei Chang