Autonomous agents are moving from tools into a layer of social infrastructure: they browse, purchase, deploy software, manage systems, and increasingly interact with one another. As these systems scale, the bottleneck shifts away from raw model capability toward coordination. Agents need to form reliable relationships, organize multi-agent work, exchange value, support an AI economy, and stay safe and accountable under real-world oversight. This paper introduces the Foundation Protocol (FP), a graph-first coordination layer for an emerging human-AI society. FP unifies heterogeneous entities, including agents, tools, resources, humans, institutions, and organizations, and supports native multi-party organization and event-based collaboration. It also provides economic primitives for metering, receipts, and settlement, and treats policy, provenance, and audit as first-class concerns. FP is designed to wrap and bridge existing protocols rather than replace them, enabling incremental adoption while reducing integration and governance overhead. The aim is to keep autonomous agency composable while keeping accountability non-negotiable, so that coordination itself can become shared infrastructure for a human-AI society that is open, pluralistic, and governable.</p>\n","updatedAt":"2026-05-26T03:51:04.222Z","author":{"_id":"654a97282d2fcd6bf2851173","avatarUrl":"https://cdn-avatars.huggingface.co/v1/production/uploads/654a97282d2fcd6bf2851173/9zXf940gr4WNt4e-oOt4k.png","fullname":"Bang Liu","name":"Bang-UdeM-Mila","type":"user","isPro":false,"isHf":false,"isHfAdmin":false,"isMod":false,"followerCount":14,"isUserFollowing":false}},"numEdits":0,"identifiedLanguage":{"language":"en","probability":0.9156948328018188},"editors":["Bang-UdeM-Mila"],"editorAvatarUrls":["https://cdn-avatars.huggingface.co/v1/production/uploads/654a97282d2fcd6bf2851173/9zXf940gr4WNt4e-oOt4k.png"],"reactions":[],"isReport":false}}],"primaryEmailConfirmed":false,"paper":{"id":"2605.23218","authors":[{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708ae9","name":"Bang Liu","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708aea","user":{"_id":"6706291479d054664b4e4849","avatarUrl":"https://cdn-avatars.huggingface.co/v1/production/uploads/6706291479d054664b4e4849/cUnRAXXQNshpSlw-1p0ro.jpeg","isPro":false,"fullname":"GUGUGU","user":"yongfenggu","type":"user","name":"yongfenggu"},"name":"Yongfeng Gu","status":"claimed_verified","statusLastChangedAt":"2026-05-26T07:09:02.362Z","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708aeb","name":"Jiayi Zhang","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708aec","name":"Zhaoyang Yu","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708aed","name":"Sirui Hong","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708aee","name":"Maojia Song","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708aef","name":"Xiaoqiang Wang","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708af0","name":"Mingyi Deng","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708af1","name":"Zijie Zhuang","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708af2","name":"Ronghao Wang","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708af3","name":"Mingzhe Cao","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708af4","user":{"_id":"67a5cc703df9846cc42efcf8","avatarUrl":"https://cdn-avatars.huggingface.co/v1/production/uploads/noauth/b_8iRR7QsI02PC1wAQMEZ.jpeg","isPro":false,"fullname":"2p1c","user":"yutongzhu","type":"user","name":"yutongzhu"},"name":"Yutong Zhu","status":"claimed_verified","statusLastChangedAt":"2026-05-26T07:09:08.600Z","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708af5","name":"Xingjian Li","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708af6","name":"Yifan Wu","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708af7","user":{"_id":"68a435cc22fdf7356962ccb9","avatarUrl":"/avatars/467f4732ade5f47b42433ff354acdeef.svg","isPro":false,"fullname":"jianhao ruan","user":"Aurorra1123","type":"user","name":"Aurorra1123"},"name":"Jianhao Ruan","status":"claimed_verified","statusLastChangedAt":"2026-05-26T07:47:40.410Z","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708af8","user":{"_id":"68916bcc7010947276e5d04b","avatarUrl":"https://cdn-avatars.huggingface.co/v1/production/uploads/68916bcc7010947276e5d04b/pBsPjyMswdkyqNYcC8mAn.jpeg","isPro":false,"fullname":"YiRan Peng","user":"amagipeng","type":"user","name":"amagipeng"},"name":"Yiran Peng","status":"claimed_verified","statusLastChangedAt":"2026-05-26T07:09:04.466Z","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708af9","name":"Shuangrui Chen","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708afa","name":"Jinlin Wang","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708afb","name":"Yizhang Lin","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708afc","name":"Dongjie Zhang","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708afd","name":"Dekun Wu","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708afe","name":"Chen Ma","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708aff","name":"Lizi Liao","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708b00","name":"Han Yu","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708b01","name":"Jian Pei","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708b02","name":"Heng Ji","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708b03","name":"Qiang Yang","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708b04","name":"Yuyu Luo","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a151786b57a1823d5708b05","name":"Chenglin Wu","hidden":false}],"mediaUrls":["https://cdn-uploads.huggingface.co/production/uploads/654a97282d2fcd6bf2851173/3WIsX3kMryeuupW3E-yyx.mp4","https://cdn-uploads.huggingface.co/production/uploads/654a97282d2fcd6bf2851173/xoVUWxgpUfe9zzCHuWs0f.png"],"publishedAt":"2026-05-22T00:00:00.000Z","submittedOnDailyAt":"2026-05-26T00:00:00.000Z","title":"Foundation Protocol: A Coordination Layer for Agentic Society","submittedOnDailyBy":{"_id":"654a97282d2fcd6bf2851173","avatarUrl":"https://cdn-avatars.huggingface.co/v1/production/uploads/654a97282d2fcd6bf2851173/9zXf940gr4WNt4e-oOt4k.png","isPro":false,"fullname":"Bang Liu","user":"Bang-UdeM-Mila","type":"user","name":"Bang-UdeM-Mila"},"summary":"Autonomous agents are moving from tools into a layer of social infrastructure: they browse, purchase, deploy software, manage systems, and increasingly interact with one another. As these systems scale, the bottleneck shifts away from raw model capability toward coordination. Agents need to form reliable relationships, organize multi-agent work, exchange value, support an AI economy, and stay safe and accountable under real-world oversight. This paper introduces the Foundation Protocol (FP), a graph-first coordination layer for an emerging human-AI society. FP unifies heterogeneous entities, including agents, tools, resources, humans, institutions, and organizations, and supports native multi-party organization and event-based collaboration. It also provides economic primitives for metering, receipts, and settlement, and treats policy, provenance, and audit as first-class concerns. FP is designed to wrap and bridge existing protocols rather than replace them, enabling incremental adoption while reducing integration and governance overhead. The aim is to keep autonomous agency composable while keeping accountability non-negotiable, so that coordination itself can become shared infrastructure for a human-AI society that is open, pluralistic, and governable.","upvotes":40,"discussionId":"6a151787b57a1823d5708b06","projectPage":"https://foundationagents.org/","githubRepo":"https://github.com/FoundationAgents/foundation-protocol","githubRepoAddedBy":"user","githubStars":1,"organization":{"_id":"6227f7c251f12089212890c7","name":"UdeM","fullname":"University of Montreal","avatar":"https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/5fc5040bbc17afee81b09ce3f2295cd2?d=retro&size=100"}},"canReadDatabase":false,"canManagePapers":false,"canSubmit":false,"hasHfLevelAccess":false,"upvoted":false,"upvoters":[{"_id":"67efa94d177330e27abc4b35","avatarUrl":"https://cdn-avatars.huggingface.co/v1/production/uploads/67efa94d177330e27abc4b35/xKo68owBVtr0nDjKI5YaZ.jpeg","isPro":false,"fullname":"Mingyi Deng","user":"Rubbisheep","type":"user"},{"_id":"654a97282d2fcd6bf2851173","avatarUrl":"https://cdn-avatars.huggingface.co/v1/production/uploads/654a97282d2fcd6bf2851173/9zXf940gr4WNt4e-oOt4k.png","isPro":false,"fullname":"Bang Liu","user":"Bang-UdeM-Mila","type":"user"},{"_id":"65685ef7d0a121b8e81afe2a","avatarUrl":"/avatars/bdf540632ff7e27564353ba4d799f9c9.svg","isPro":false,"fullname":"Evan","user":"Evanwu50020","type":"user"},{"_id":"67efa8a2ed790a2e999dc216","avatarUrl":"https://cdn-avatars.huggingface.co/v1/production/uploads/no-auth/0S4lQCJX61uCF8EkSLMkk.png","isPro":false,"fullname":"Yuyu Luo","user":"luoyuyu","type":"user"},{"_id":"62bb1e0f3ff437e49a3088e5","avatarUrl":"https://cdn-avatars.huggingface.co/v1/production/uploads/62bb1e0f3ff437e49a3088e5/MWNanci3x5g780xh-704U.png","isPro":true,"fullname":"Suyuchen Wang","user":"sheryc","type":"user"},{"_id":"65e9662f014f4be34f7a836e","avatarUrl":"/avatars/c5852f4fb92f1afdcaed58b8ae08102c.svg","isPro":false,"fullname":"Jia Ao Sun","user":"sunjiaao","type":"user"},{"_id":"65f4b65f8fb2b15357cb989b","avatarUrl":"/avatars/7ce3893140fedf42c781aaf06eb308ae.svg","isPro":false,"fullname":"YAN ZHANG","user":"Yan777","type":"user"},{"_id":"6989359508275c850b60575f","avatarUrl":"/avatars/f33d0e51074aec92385242b2c741a6e0.svg","isPro":false,"fullname":"Lizi","user":"quenxings","type":"user"},{"_id":"62fdc5d4ee999004b5b259e8","avatarUrl":"/avatars/65dcbfcdef094a6f42130ccae6eea2bd.svg","isPro":false,"fullname":"Alan Li","user":"Alan123","type":"user"},{"_id":"64252594a4f3051f54dd4355","avatarUrl":"/avatars/c1f982b9b6be2956f6b6558be70d9ec3.svg","isPro":false,"fullname":"Wu","user":"alexanderwu","type":"user"},{"_id":"65d28e6ef8ab7fc6697e6542","avatarUrl":"/avatars/b9f8f1cb2eaa16c0325e1f53bb7fa94b.svg","isPro":false,"fullname":"Istabrak Abbes","user":"istabrak","type":"user"},{"_id":"68199275919726cb468fa7bc","avatarUrl":"/avatars/e2c4d2a97802f2911824284e236047d2.svg","isPro":false,"fullname":"zz","user":"zhong-zhang","type":"user"}],"acceptLanguages":["en"],"dailyPaperRank":2,"organization":{"_id":"6227f7c251f12089212890c7","name":"UdeM","fullname":"University of Montreal","avatar":"https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/5fc5040bbc17afee81b09ce3f2295cd2?d=retro&size=100"},"markdownContentUrl":"https://huggingface.co/buckets/huggingchat/papers-content/resolve/2605/2605.23218.md"}">
Foundation Protocol: A Coordination Layer for Agentic Society
Authors: ,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
Abstract
Autonomous agents are moving from tools into a layer of social infrastructure: they browse, purchase, deploy software, manage systems, and increasingly interact with one another. As these systems scale, the bottleneck shifts away from raw model capability toward coordination. Agents need to form reliable relationships, organize multi-agent work, exchange value, support an AI economy, and stay safe and accountable under real-world oversight. This paper introduces the Foundation Protocol (FP), a graph-first coordination layer for an emerging human-AI society. FP unifies heterogeneous entities, including agents, tools, resources, humans, institutions, and organizations, and supports native multi-party organization and event-based collaboration. It also provides economic primitives for metering, receipts, and settlement, and treats policy, provenance, and audit as first-class concerns. FP is designed to wrap and bridge existing protocols rather than replace them, enabling incremental adoption while reducing integration and governance overhead. The aim is to keep autonomous agency composable while keeping accountability non-negotiable, so that coordination itself can become shared infrastructure for a human-AI society that is open, pluralistic, and governable.
Community
Autonomous agents are moving from tools into a layer of social infrastructure: they browse, purchase, deploy software, manage systems, and increasingly interact with one another. As these systems scale, the bottleneck shifts away from raw model capability toward coordination. Agents need to form reliable relationships, organize multi-agent work, exchange value, support an AI economy, and stay safe and accountable under real-world oversight. This paper introduces the Foundation Protocol (FP), a graph-first coordination layer for an emerging human-AI society. FP unifies heterogeneous entities, including agents, tools, resources, humans, institutions, and organizations, and supports native multi-party organization and event-based collaboration. It also provides economic primitives for metering, receipts, and settlement, and treats policy, provenance, and audit as first-class concerns. FP is designed to wrap and bridge existing protocols rather than replace them, enabling incremental adoption while reducing integration and governance overhead. The aim is to keep autonomous agency composable while keeping accountability non-negotiable, so that coordination itself can become shared infrastructure for a human-AI society that is open, pluralistic, and governable.
Upload images, audio, and videos by dragging in the text input, pasting, or clicking here.
Tap or paste here to upload images
Cite arxiv.org/abs/2605.23218 in a model README.md to link it from this page.
Cite arxiv.org/abs/2605.23218 in a dataset README.md to link it from this page.
Cite arxiv.org/abs/2605.23218 in a Space README.md to link it from this page.
Discussion (0)
Sign in to join the discussion. Free account, 30 seconds — email code or GitHub.
Sign in →No comments yet. Sign in and be the first to say something.