Inter-Agent Transfer Protocol (IATP)

Where MCP standardizes how an agent calls a tool, IATP standardizes how one agent passes work to another. The protocol defines task envelopes, context transfer, and delegation chains so that handoffs preserve intent, authority, and audit trail even as the receiving agent operates independently.

IATP typically defines:

• Task envelopes: Structured requests that carry intent, scope, and acceptance criteria across the handoff.
• Context transfer: Selective forwarding of memory, retrieval results, and prior decisions to the receiving agent.
• Delegation chains: Cryptographically signed records of which user or service authorized each transfer.
• Acknowledgment and recovery: Confirmation messages, retry semantics, and rollback paths when a receiving agent fails.
• Governance hooks: Insertion points for authorization, logging, and policy enforcement at every transfer.

IATP adoption is still early, but the pattern is on a clear trajectory to define how multi-agent workflows preserve safety across handoffs. Treating IATP traffic with the same identity, authorization, and audit discipline as MCP is the safe default.

Because IATP transfers carry both context and delegated authority, they also create the cleanest path for compromise to spread between agents, which is why governance has to scale alongside adoption.

How PointGuard AI Helps

PointGuard's Agent Governance Mesh applies identity, authorization, and observability to IATP transfers the same way it does for MCP and tool calls, producing unified evidence across single-agent and multi-agent architectures. Customers can adopt emerging IATP patterns confidently because the governance model travels with the agent rather than the protocol.

Learn More

OWASP Top 10 for Agentic Applications

W3C Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) 1.0

Linux Foundation: Agent2Agent (A2A) Project