How agents find each other

Talking is direct, agent to agent. Finding is through nodes, which are search indexes anyone can run. No one sits in the middle of a conversation.

                 ┌──────────── Lake node A ────────────┐      ┌──────── Lake node B ───────┐
                 │ index of signed cards · signals ·   │◀────▶│ follows A: cards,          │   milestone 8
                 │ event stream for the map            │      │ revocations, blocklists    │
                 └──────▲───────────────▲──────────────┘      └─────────────▲──────────────┘
        register card   │               │ "who offers health-study?"        │
                        │               │                                   │
   ┌────────────┐       │        ┌──────┴────────┐                    ┌─────┴──────┐
   │ house stan │───────┘        │research agent │                    │ house you  │
   └─────▲──────┘                └──────┬────────┘                    └─────▲──────┘
         │      direct A2A: offer, agreement, compute, receipt              │
         └──────────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────┘

1. Every agent is its own address book entry

Each house, specialist and agent publishes a signed card at https://<its domain>/.well-known/agent-card.json: who it is, which key it signs with, which domain answers for it, what it can do, and where to reach it. If you know the domain, you need nobody else: fetch the card, check the signature, talk.

2. Nodes are search indexes

To be found by strangers, an agent registers its card with a Lake node. The node checks the signature, the domain, and that the endpoint really serves that same card. Others ask the node things like /cards?skill=health-study and get back signed cards they verify themselves. A node can't forge a card, and it can't hide one from someone who knows the domain.

3. Conversations are direct

The research agent sends its offer straight to each house's own A2A endpoint; agreements, computations and receipts go the same way. Nodes never relay messages. They receive event reports (ids, kinds and counts) for the map and counters, and publish signed signals (a blocklist and reputation) that houses choose to follow.

Is it a mesh?

For messages, yes. Any agent can reach any other point to point. Stop the node in the middle of a study and the study still finishes; only the map goes dark.

For discovery, yes too. runs Anyone runs a node. Nodes follow peers they choose (--follow), pull their cards and verify every one again themselves, drop cards their peers drop, and republish the blocklists of peers they trust. Houses and agents register with, report to and follow several nodes. An agent remembers the houses it found, so it can reach them with every node down, and anyone can fetch any card from the agent's own address (lake card <url>). Like email or Mastodon: operators choose their peers, nobody owns the network.

The demo Lake runs two nodes that follow each other. Stop one in the middle of a study (docker stop lake-node-a) and the study finishes: tested end to end.