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OpenASA Basics

What is ASA

ASA (Agent Service Agreement) is an open agreement framework designed for AI-agent ecosystems.

ASA promotes a de-platformed interaction model. Instead of relying on centralized application platforms, agent services broadcast structured service indexes, and demand-side agents discover and interact with services through standardized agreements.

Background

Current approaches (MCP, skills, CLI adapters, A2A variants) improve agent capabilities, but still face cross-provider switching cost, duplicated maintenance overhead, and trust/safety inconsistency.

ASA aims to address two problems simultaneously:

  1. Cross-platform interoperability
  2. Direct service invocation without platform gatekeeping

Core Philosophy: Agent Service via Agreement

  • Agent (demand side): discovers, parses, and invokes target services via standardized agreements.
  • Agent Service (supply side): publishes service index and exposes capabilities under agreement-defined contracts.
  • via Agreement: interaction is constrained by explicit contract terms (inputs, outputs, error semantics, authorization, and settlement expectations).

Core Characteristics

  • De-platforming
  • Standardized Agreement + Agreement Authorization
  • Open Indexing
  • High efficiency (fewer round-trips, more deterministic execution)
  • Lower cost (minimal disclosure, minimal unnecessary context)
  • Higher trust and auditability (open agreement governance)
  • Extensibility across industries and agent architectures

How It Works

  1. Service Broadcast: agent services publish structured service indexes.
  2. Index Discovery: demand-side agents discover and filter candidates.
  3. Agreement Handshake: both sides agree on executable contract.
  4. Execution & Settlement: task execution, state sync, and settlement by agreement.

ASA: Connect by Index, Collaborate by Agreement.

ASA architecture

ASA multi-service interaction

Ecosystem

  • ASAHub: visual community and collaboration portal.
  • ASACtl: CLI for agreement-driven operations.
  • ASACode: agent-oriented code format for offline/nearline interactions.

Roadmap Snapshot

  • [x] Agent interaction based on ASA agreements
  • [x] Custom agreement extension
  • [ ] More agreement patterns
  • [ ] AI-native index auditing
  • [ ] Open index discovery algorithm improvements
  • [ ] More business vertical standards
  • [ ] Transparent governance evolution

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