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Show HN: Agent Action Protocol (AAP) – MCP got us started, but is insufficient
Background: I've been working on agentic guardrails because agents act in expensive/terrible ways and something needs to be able to say "Maybe don't do that" to the agents, but guardrails are almost impossible to enforce with the current way things are built.
Context: We keep running into so many problems/limitations today with MCP. It was created so that agents have context on how to act in the world, it wasn't designed to become THE standard rails for agentic behavior. We keep tacking things on to it trying to improve it, but it needs to die a SOAP death so REST can rise in it's place. We need a standard protocol for whenever an agent is taking action. Anywhere.
I'm almost certainly the wrong person to design this, but I'm seeing more and more people tack things on to MCP rather than fix the underlying issues. The fastest way to get a good answer is to submit a bad one on the internet. So here I am. I think we need a new protocol. Whether it's AAP or something else, I submit my best effort.
Please rip it apart, lets make something better.
>AAP sits above transport protocols. MCP is a valid execution backend — so are function calling, REST, and CLI. AAP defines the what. Transport protocols define the how.
>[MCP] needs to die a SOAP death so REST can rise in it's place.
So is AAP a replacement for MCP or something that sits above it? If the latter, why use AAP over Skills?
Also, IMO the biggest problem with MCP is that it's over-specced and over-constrained. This feels even more over-specced.
You're right that I say both "above and not in place of" and "MCP needs to die"... I should that (but cant edit anymore).. it's unclear.... someday I see MCP being replaced by something else. But it's not my intention to completely replace MCP, but to solve the problem above it today.... I think that will be sufficient for today.