Agentic Resource Discovery Specification

ARD is an open discovery protocol for agentic resources. It allows an AI client to ask: "What is available for this task?" and lets a discovery service answer with matching resources.

ARD sits entirely before invocation. It helps the client find the right resource; the resource is then invoked through its own native protocol.

What is an agentic resource?

An agentic resource is any external capability an AI client can call on to do a task — an agent, MCP server, Skill, API, workflow, AI Catalog entry, or anything similar.

What ARD is not

It is not an execution runtime: ARD is not MCP, A2A, Skills, AI Catalog, or an API runtime, and it does not replace them.

It is not a central catalog: Different discovery services can index different resources, serve different communities, and apply varying trust, ranking, and access policies.

Who is behind ARD?

ARD is being developed by a working group with participants from Microsoft, Google, Hugging Face, GoDaddy, and others. This work is part of a broader effort to create an open discovery layer for resources that AIs can draw on.

To understand the motivation and design, start with the Introduction.