What ANS provides
ANS combines domain control, certificates, and transparency records to help an application verify an agent’s registered identity. Authentication checks identity, current registration status, and possession of the associated private key.
The published specifications are drafts under active development. The project includes a reference implementation, SDKs, and integrations with different levels of maturity. See implementations for their scope and public source, and how ANS works for the protocol overview.
Use cases
- Partner and supplier APIs: verify that a peer is bound to the expected agent registration before exchanging business information.
- Agent gateways and tool services: authenticate a caller and apply existing permissions to its identity before forwarding a request.
- Lifecycle operations: detect expired or revoked registrations and manage changes to the certificates used by registered agents.
These are integration patterns. A platform must explicitly implement ANS verification and enforce the result. Registration does not automatically connect an agent to every assistant, marketplace, or directory.
Identity and application policy
ANS authentication identifies the peer. Your application decides what that peer may do. Authorization, user delegation, business reputation, and safe behavior remain separate concerns.
Sealed metadata digests can bind published metadata to a registration; they do not attest the code executing on a remote machine. Optional Verified Identities can add separately proven identity relationships where an implementation supports them. Trust evaluation is maintained as a separate project.
Project history
ANS builds on Agent Name Service for Secure AI Agent Discovery, contributed as an IETF Internet-Draft. The specification repository records that work and its authors.
On June 23, 2026, the Linux Foundation announced its intent to launch ANS. Meet the initial TSC and read about project stewardship on the governance page.
Get involved
Try the reference implementation, read the specification, or make a contribution. Project development takes place in the public agentnameservice GitHub organization.