https://github.com/agentruntimecontrolprotocol/spec
ARCP specification — Agent Runtime Control Protocol. Transport-agnostic, schema-first protocol for secure, observable, streaming-native execution of tools, jobs, workflows, and agent-to-agent interactions. Complements MCP: where MCP defines what exists, ARCP defines how execution happens.
https://github.com/agentruntimecontrolprotocol/spec
agent-protocol agent-runtime-control-protocol agents ai-agents arcp durable-execution human-in-the-loop llm mcp protocol-spec rfc specification streaming
Last synced: 2 days ago
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ARCP specification — Agent Runtime Control Protocol. Transport-agnostic, schema-first protocol for secure, observable, streaming-native execution of tools, jobs, workflows, and agent-to-agent interactions. Complements MCP: where MCP defines what exists, ARCP defines how execution happens.
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/agentruntimecontrolprotocol/spec
- Owner: agentruntimecontrolprotocol
- Created: 2026-05-10T16:45:37.000Z (about 2 months ago)
- Default Branch: main
- Last Pushed: 2026-06-16T20:04:16.000Z (14 days ago)
- Last Synced: 2026-06-16T22:08:18.160Z (14 days ago)
- Topics: agent-protocol, agent-runtime-control-protocol, agents, ai-agents, arcp, durable-execution, human-in-the-loop, llm, mcp, protocol-spec, rfc, specification, streaming
- Homepage: https://github.com/agentruntimecontrolprotocol/spec
- Size: 246 KB
- Stars: 0
- Watchers: 0
- Forks: 0
- Open Issues: 0
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
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README
# ARCP Specification
This repository contains the normative specification for the Agent Runtime Control Protocol (ARCP).
## Contents
```
docs/
draft-arcp-1.1.md ← normative spec
diagrams/
system-architecture-{light,dark}.{dot,svg}
job-lifecycle-{light,dark}.{dot,svg}
seq-*-{light,dark}.{puml,svg} ← §13 example sequences
_theme-{light,dark}.puml ← shared PlantUML skinparams
generate-sequences.py ← regenerates .puml + .svg
README.md
```
## Reading the spec
The single authoritative document is [`docs/draft-arcp-1.1.md`](docs/draft-arcp-1.1.md). It covers:
- Session lifecycle (hello/welcome, resume, heartbeats, acknowledgement, job listing, close)
- Job submission, idempotency, lifecycle, cancellation, agent versioning, and cross-session subscription
- Job event kinds and sequence number guarantees
- Result streaming (`result_chunk`)
- Lease capability model, namespaces, subsetting, expiration, and budget enforcement
- Delegation
- Trace propagation (W3C Trace Context)
- Error taxonomy
- Security considerations
- IANA considerations
## Diagrams
The `docs/diagrams/` folder contains paired light/dark sources in two formats:
- **Graphviz `.dot`** — system architecture and job lifecycle state machine.
- **PlantUML `.puml`** — the §13 example sequence diagrams.
Regenerate SVGs with:
```sh
cd docs/diagrams
# Graphviz
for f in *.dot; do dot -Tsvg "$f" -o "${f%.dot}.svg"; done
# PlantUML sequences (writes .puml files and renders SVGs)
python3 generate-sequences.py
```
Requires `graphviz` and `plantuml`. On macOS: `brew install graphviz plantuml`. On Debian/Ubuntu: `apt-get install -y graphviz plantuml`. See [`docs/diagrams/README.md`](docs/diagrams/README.md) for the full list of diagrams.
## Contributing
Spec changes require an issue opened first with motivation and wire-shape sketch. PRs without a corresponding issue will not be merged. All contributions are licensed under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).