Lad-A2A: How AI agents find each other on local networks(lad-a2a.org)
2 pointsby franzvill2 hours ago1 comment
  • franzvill2 hours ago
    AI agents are getting really good at doing things, but they're completely blind to their physical surroundings.

    If you walk into a hotel and you have an AI assistant (like the Chatgpt mobile app), it has no idea there may be a concierge agent on the network that could help you book a spa, check breakfast times, or request late checkout. Same thing at offices, hospitals, cruise ships. The agents are there, but there's no way to discover them.

    A2A (Google's agent-to-agent protocol) handles how agents talk to each other. MCP handles how agents use tools. But neither answers a basic question: how do you find agents in the first place?

    So I built LAD-A2A, a simple discovery protocol. When you connect to a Wi-Fi, your agent can automatically find what's available using mDNS (like how AirDrop finds nearby devices) or a standard HTTP endpoint.

    The spec is intentionally minimal. I didn't want to reinvent A2A or create another complex standard. LAD-A2A just handles discovery, then hands off to A2A for actual communication.

    Open source, Apache 2.0. Includes a working Python implementation you can run to see it in action.

    Curious what people think!

    https://lad-a2a.org/ https://github.com/franzvill/lad

    • ai_critic2 hours ago
      This is super neat, don't get me wrong, but....

      Please, please, please require HTTPS. Dear god.

      The network is not secure.

      Your example:

      ```

      # Start a discovery server

      python -m server.lad_server --name "My Agent" --port 8080

      # Discover agents (in another terminal)

      python -m client.lad_client --url http://localhost:8080

      ```

      • franzvillan hour ago
        Thanks for flagging this! You're absolutely right about network security.

        The spec does require TLS - from Section 4.1: > "All HTTP endpoints MUST use TLS 1.2 or higher" > "Clients MUST verify TLS certificates"

        The `http://localhost:8080` example is just for local development/demo purposes. In production, all discovery endpoints and AgentCard fetches must use HTTPS.