Bluesky Thread

my evolving take on A2A is that the world isn't ready, and i'm not sure it ev...

May 06, 2025 View original thread

my evolving take on A2A is that the world isn't ready, and i'm not sure it ever will be

A2A visualizes agent-to-agent comms similar to actors. messages pass between the agents and can be interleaved and out-of-order and don't have to be simple request->response. an agent can be spontaneously msg'd

A dark-themed diagram shows a communication flow between two roles: **Paralegal** on the left and **Archivist** on the right. The same roles are repeated in identical positions at the top and bottom, suggesting a loop or repeated interaction.

Four arrows indicate the exchange of information:

1. A **solid white arrow** from the top-left Paralegal to the top-right Archivist labeled “**Give me X precedents**”.
2. A **solid white arrow** from the top-right Archivist to the bottom-left Paralegal labeled “**X precedents**”.
3. A **dashed white arrow** from the bottom-left Paralegal to the bottom-right Archivist labeled “**Give me Y precedents**”.
4. A **dashed white arrow** from the bottom-right Archivist to the bottom-left Paralegal labeled “**Y precedents**”.

The diagram illustrates a two-step request-response interaction pattern between a Paralegal and an Archivist, repeated for two different types of legal precedents: X and Y. Solid lines may represent direct or primary requests, while dashed lines suggest secondary or follow-up queries.

the thing is, almost all AI tooling has been oriented around functions — parameters go in, return values go out

its easy to understand and has broad support

there's a few frameworks, like autogen, where chatter between agents is a little bit free-form, but even those have rules, and they take a monolithic approach involving specific comms patterns

i don't think this is a good sign for interop

is A2A a good protocol?

it's clean, small and simple. it's good from that perspective. but actor-based comms patterns historically have not worked terribly well

e.g. Akka eventually developed a Future-based API

i see MCP being used and abused rather than adopt A2A

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