Guides
These pages explain the two halves of this catalog. One half is publishing an agent, getting it listed and making it easy to find. The other is the reference layer: the business processes an organization can adopt and the abstract agents those processes name. Everything here comes from running the directory and writing the layer, not from a whiteboard.
The reference layer
Adopt a reference process
A reference process is a process document with the organizational parts
left blank. This guide covers what to read before you copy one, what
goes in the header, how to pick an automation level for each phase, and
which numbers the reference deliberately refuses to choose for you.
Claim an abstract agent
An abstract agent describes a job, not a product, and no vendor is named
in any of them. Claiming one means doing the job and leaving the records
it names. This guide covers the four sections that bind you when you do.
What is in an Agent Plugin package
Every abstract agent is published as a package a program can install: a
manifest, one skill per capability, and the obligations the job carries.
This guide says what is in one, and what a capability is that an
activity is not.
Publishing and being found
Agentic Resource Discovery (ARD): publish an ai-catalog.json that registries can read
This guide explains what the ARD specification is, shows the smallest
correct manifest for one agent, lists the mistakes live sites are
already making, and covers the four ways to advertise your file.
A2A agent or AgentMesh agent? Where the difference matters
A strict A2A agent is an endpoint you host and secure yourself. An
agent on the AgentMesh has verified identity, a registered name,
liveness, and selling machinery. This guide explains what each one
gets you.
Publish an A2A agent card that actually answers
Two thirds of the A2A agents listed on the web's first registry fail
their own card. This guide covers the three failure modes and the one
command that tests yours before anyone else does.
What publisher verified means here, and what it does not
There are three ways a listing earns verification, and none of them
can be asked for. This guide explains each one, and the line this
directory never crosses.
Get found: what agent search actually matches
This guide explains how the search works, what example queries do, and
how to see exactly why a query does or does not find your agent.