Terminology for Networking Infrastructure in the Internet of Agents
draft-wang-dmsc-terminology-ioa-networking-01

Network Working Group                                            X. Wang
Internet-Draft                                                     CAICT
Intended status: Standards Track                                 Q. Zhao
Expires: 2 January 2027                                    China Telecom
                                                                 Y. Yang
                                                                   Z. Li
                                                                   CAICT
                                                             1 July 2026

  Terminology for Networking Infrastructure in the Internet of Agents
             draft-wang-dmsc-terminology-ioa-networking-01

Abstract

   The emergence of the Internet of Agents (IoA) introduces new
   requirements for interoperable collaboration among autonomous agents
   across heterogeneous networks, platforms, and administrative domains.
   Supporting such environments requires common understanding of
   infrastructure functions, collaboration mechanisms, semantic
   interaction, and trust-related concepts.

   This document defines terminology for networking infrastructure in
   IoA environments, with a focus on Dynamic Multi-agent Secured
   Collaboration (DMSC).  The terminology defined in this document is
   intended to support consistent usage across DMSC-related
   architecture, framework, and protocol specifications.

Status of This Memo

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on 2 January 2027.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Functional Entity Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Infrastructure Operational Behaviors and Mechanisms Terms . .   4
   4.  Trust Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   5.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   6.  Privacy Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   7.  Operational Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   8.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6

1.  Introduction

   The Internet of Agents is emerging as a distributed collaboration
   environment in which autonomous agents interact across heterogeneous
   networks, platforms, administrative domains, and trust boundaries.
   Unlike traditional service-oriented systems, agent-based
   collaboration introduces dynamic capability discovery, semantic
   interaction, task coordination, and cross-domain interoperability
   requirements among intelligent entities.

   To support scalable and interoperable collaboration, networking
   infrastructure functions are required to provide registration,
   discovery, capability management, semantic routing, trust
   establishment, and coordination mechanisms across intra-domain and
   inter-domain environments.  As DMSC (Dynamic Multi-agent Secured
   Collaboration) evolves to address these infrastructure challenges,
   consistent terminology becomes necessary to describe architectural
   concepts, collaboration behaviors, functional entities, and
   interaction processes in a unified manner.

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   This document defines terminology for networking infrastructure in
   the Internet of Agents, with a focus on DMSC-related collaboration
   environments and infrastructure functions.  The terminology defined
   in this document is intended to support consistent usage across DMSC-
   related architecture, framework, and protocol specifications.

   The terms defined in this document cover collaboration domains,
   functional entities, registration and discovery procedures,
   capability management, semantic interaction mechanisms, and trust-
   related concepts for interoperable multi-agent collaboration.

   This document defines terminology only and does not specify
   protocols, message formats, or implementation requirements.

2.  Functional Entity Terms

   The following terms define functional entities that collectively
   constitute IoA networking infrastructures.

   *  Internet of Agents(IoA): An Internet-based architecture that
      extends the existing Internet by taking autonomous agents as
      first-class interaction entities, and supports scalable
      communication, coordination, and information exchange across
      heterogeneous networks, platforms, systems, and administrative
      domains.

   *  Agent: An autonomous software or hardware entity capable of
      perceiving its environment, processing information, and performing
      actions to achieve defined objectives, either independently or
      through interaction with other agents within IoA.

   *  Virtual Agent: A carrier-free agent operating in the digital
      network environment, which implements environment perception,
      information processing, intelligent decision-making and business
      execution through software programs.

   *  Embodied Agent: A physically embedded agent equipped with
      intelligent algorithms, which can independently complete
      perception, decision-making, control and execution actions in
      physical spaces.

   *  Agent platform: A platform for the Internet of Agents (IoA) that
      delivers deployment management and capability orchestration for
      diverse agents, enabling full-lifecycle operation and large-scale
      collaborative applications of agents.

   *  Agent Identifier: An identifier that uniquely distinguishes an
      agent.

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   *  Agent Gateway: A functional entity that supports distributed agent
      registration, discovery, request coordination, and protocol
      translation cross-domain information exchange.

   *  Capability Directory: A functional entity that maintains and
      provides capability-related information used for discovery and
      matching of agents.  The capability information may be organized
      in forms such as capability registries, metadata directories, or
      other discoverable capability description structures.

   *  Registry Entity: A functional entity responsible for registering
      agents and maintaining their registration information.

   *  Agent Credential Service: A functional entity responsible for
      issuing, maintaining, and revoking Agent Credentials associated
      with agents.

   *  Trust Service: A functional entity responsible for validating
      Agent Credentials and managing trust relationships and trust
      policies between entities within or across collaboration domains.

   *  IOA Protocol Suite: A collection of interoperable protocols and
      protocol components that support agent registration, discovery,
      coordination, secure communication, capability synchronization,
      semantic interoperability, and collaboration within or across
      domains in IoA environments.

3.  Infrastructure Operational Behaviors and Mechanisms Terms

   The following terms define operational processes, coordination
   behaviors, and collaboration mechanisms used by IoA networking
   infrastructures to support agent collaboration, synchronization,
   registration, discovery, and semantic interaction.

   1.  Registration

       *  Agent Registration: The process by which an agent is onboarded
          into a collaboration domain and recorded in the registry
          system.

       *  Registration Function: A protocol or mechanism used for
          registering and maintaining unique Agent Identifiers.

       *  Registration Synchronization: The process of maintaining
          consistent Agent Identifier information within a single
          collaboration domain.

   2.  Discovery & Capability

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       *  Capability Discovery: The process of locating agents based on
          their advertised capabilities or semantic descriptions.

       *  Capability Discovery Function: A protocol or mechanism used
          for discovering agent capability information based on
          capability queries, and returning matching capability
          descriptions or associated agents.  Such a function may be
          realized through agent gateway-based discovery, capability
          directory lookup, or naming-system-assisted resolution.

       *  Capability Synchronization: The process of maintaining
          consistent capability directory within a single collaboration
          domain.

       *  Semantic Capability Matching: The process of matching
          requested intent or constraints with available capabilities
          using semantic understanding.

   3.  Semantic Interaction

       *  Semantic Representation: A structured representation of
          intent, capability, task, and contextual information used for
          semantic interpretation and interoperability among agents and
          infrastructure entities.

       *  Semantic Interaction: An interaction paradigm within or across
          domains in IoA.  It allows agents and infrastructure entities
          to unify intent, capability, task and context via semantic
          comprehension, and facilitates coordinated collaboration among
          heterogeneous domains.

       *  Semantic Interaction Function: A set of functional mechanisms
          used to enable Semantic Interaction.  It is composed with core
          components such as standardized semantic metadata, semantic
          envelopes, compatibility validation mechanisms and others.
          This function supports semantic-level alignment by detecting,
          interpreting, and mitigating inconsistencies for capability
          descriptions, task descriptions, context assumptions, and
          policy constraints used by agents from different
          administrative domains.

       *  Semantic Routing: A routing process that selects collaboration
          paths, agents, or infrastructure entities based on semantic
          understanding of capabilities, intent, context, or task
          requirements.

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4.  Trust Terms

   The following terms define trust-related concepts used in IoA
   networking infrastructures, including credentials, authentication,
   authorization, and trust establishment mechanisms that support secure
   and interoperable collaboration among agents and infrastructure
   entities.

   *  Agent Credential: A data object associated with an agent identity
      and used to represent identity attributes, authentication
      information, or authorization information.

   *  Trust Establishment: The process of establishing trust
      relationships between entities or trust domains to support
      interoperable interactions.

   *  Agent Authentication: The process of verifying the authenticity of
      an agent based on Agent Credentials.

   *  Agent Authorization: The process of granting an agent permission
      to access resources, services, or collaboration functions
      according to applicable policies.

5.  Security Considerations

   This document only defines a set of terms.  It does not introduce any
   issues that require security consideration.

6.  Privacy Considerations

   This document only defines a set of terms.  It does not introduce any
   issues that require privacy consideration.

7.  Operational Considerations

   This document only defines a set of terms.  It does not introduce any
   issues that require operational consideration.

8.  IANA Considerations

   This document does not make any requests of IANA.

Authors' Addresses

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   Xianghua Wang
   CAICT
   Huayuan North Road, HaiDian District
   Beijing
   Beijing, 100191
   China
   Email: wangxianghua@caict.ac.cn

   Qianying Zhao
   China Telecom
   Beiqijia Town, Changping District
   Beijing
   Beijing, 102209
   China
   Email: zhaoqy50@chinatelecom.cn

   Yihe Yang
   CAICT
   Huayuan North Road, HaiDian District
   Beijing
   Beijing, 100191
   China
   Email: yh.yang.research@gmail.com

   Zhe Li
   CAICT
   Huayuan North Road, HaiDian District
   Beijing
   Beijing, 100191
   China
   Email: lizhe@caict.ac.cn

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