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8/3/2026
A2A Protocol's Identity Gap: Why Your Agent Can't Trust Another Agent's Card

A2A Protocol's Identity Gap: Why Your Agent Can't Trust Another Agent's Card

Original: Untitled

Short summary

The A2A protocol lets agents discover and communicate with each other, but lacks built-in identity verification — any agent can claim to be anyone. The author proposes adding a first-class identity field to the Agent Card spec with a public key, issuer reference (DID or WebPKI), and mandatory signature verification during handshake. Code examples show how to hack this today via extensions, but argue it belongs in the spec itself.

  • •A2A protocol has no built-in agent identity verification — Agent Cards can be spoofed trivially
  • •Proposal: add public key, issuer DID, and signature verification as first-class Agent Card fields
  • •Workaround today uses extensions field but is fragile and non-standardized

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.

#ai-agents#open-source
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