# AgenThink Mesh — Protocol Specification
## NAN-RELAY/1.0 · NAN-HS/1.0 · Grounding Gate/1.0

**Status:** Draft v0.1  
**Authors:** AgenThink Engineering  
**Date:** March 2026

---

## 1. Overview

The **National Agentic Network (NAN) Protocol** defines how AI agents discover, authenticate, and communicate with each other via the AgenThink Mesh orchestration layer.

It answers three questions every multi-agent system must answer:

1. **Where is the right agent?** → Universal Agent Directory (UAD)
2. **What does the next agent need to know?** → State-Relay Protocol
3. **Is the agent's output trustworthy?** → Grounding Gate

---

## 2. NAN Address Scheme

Every agent in the Mesh has a globally unique NAN address:

```
nan://<country>/<domain>/<name>/<version>

Examples:
  nan://kw/finance/etf-allocator/2.1
  nan://global/research/web-researcher/2.1
  nan://ae/legal/adgm-compliance/1.0
```

**Fields:**
- `country` — ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code, or `global`
- `domain` — functional category (`finance`, `legal`, `research`, `strategy`, `compliance`, `meta`)
- `name` — kebab-case agent identifier
- `version` — semantic version (major.minor)

---

## 3. State-Relay Protocol (NAN-RELAY/1.0)

### 3.1 State-Packet Structure

```json
{
  "packet_id":       "sp_8f3a92c1d",
  "mission_id":      "msn_001",
  "sequence":        2,
  "from_agent":      "nan://global/research/web-researcher/2.1",
  "to_agent":        "nan://kw/legal/contract-analyst/1.5",
  "context": {
    "Research Agent": {
      "output":    "...",
      "timestamp": "2026-03-01T09:14:22Z"
    },
    "_summary": "Rolling mission summary..."
  },
  "partial_output":  "Agent A output here",
  "confidence":      0.91,
  "grounding": {
    "result":            "passed",
    "sources_verified":  ["https://source1.com", "https://source2.com"],
    "confidence_delta":  0.02
  },
  "is_rerouted":     false,
  "expires_at":      "2026-03-01T09:19:22Z",
  "mesh_signature":  "NAN-SIG:sha256:7f2a...b4c9",
  "issued_by":       "nan://mesh/orchestrator/core/1.0"
}
```

### 3.2 Relay Flow

```
Agent A Output
      │
      ▼
┌─────────────────────────────┐
│    Grounding Gate           │  ← verifies claims via MCP web search
│    (hallucination check)    │
└─────────────────────────────┘
      │ PASS                  │ FAIL → Rerouter evaluates failover
      ▼
┌─────────────────────────────┐
│    State-Packet Factory     │  ← merges A's output into context
│    create_packet(...)       │
└─────────────────────────────┘
      │
      ▼
┌─────────────────────────────┐
│    Orchestrator Router      │  ← selects next agent from pipeline
│    relay_engine.relay(...)  │
└─────────────────────────────┘
      │
      ▼
   Agent B receives full State-Packet
   (no context loss, no re-onboarding)
```

---

## 4. Grounding Gate (Grounding-Gate/1.0)

### 4.1 Trigger Conditions

The Grounding Gate activates on every agent output that contains:
- Numerical claims (years, percentages, financial figures)
- Recency signals (`"current"`, `"latest"`, `"as of"`)
- Attribution phrases (`"according to"`, `"reported by"`)
- Legal/regulatory references

### 4.2 Verification Method

Claims are verified via **MCP web search** (2026 standard):

```python
# MCP tool call
{
  "type": "web_search_20260101",
  "name": "web_search"
}
```

### 4.3 Pass/Fail Thresholds

| Condition | Action |
|---|---|
| ≤ 2 claims fail verification | PASS |
| > 2 claims fail verification | FAIL → trigger Rerouter |
| No verifiable claims found | AUTO-PASS |
| `require_grounding=False` | SKIP |

---

## 5. Dynamic Rerouting

### 5.1 Reroute Triggers

| Trigger | Severity | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Agent unreachable | HIGH | Immediate reroute |
| Grounding Gate FAIL | CRITICAL | Immediate reroute |
| Confidence < 0.70 | MEDIUM | Reroute if alternative available |
| Latency > 2× SLA | LOW | Log warning, continue |

### 5.2 Agent Scoring (for reroute selection)

```
score = (trust_tier_weight × 0.40) +
        (trust_score × 0.30) +
        (domain_match × 0.20) +
        (latency_score × 0.10)
```

### 5.3 Trust Score Updates

After every mission step, the Rerouter adjusts the agent's trust score:
- `+0.02` on success
- `+0.01` bonus for meeting latency SLA
- `−0.05` on failure
- `−0.03` additional penalty for severe latency breach (> 2× SLA)

---

## 6. Authentication (NAN-HS/1.0)

All agent-to-mesh communication uses:
- **mTLS** — mutual TLS with 15-minute rotating certificates
- **JWT** — signed with Ed25519, 15-minute expiry
- **Packet Signature** — SHA-256 HMAC on packet payload

Production environments additionally require:
- ADGM Digital Asset registry anchoring for T1_SOVEREIGN agents
- PDPL-compliant data residency enforcement for Kuwait jurisdiction

---

## 7. Compatibility

| Standard | Version | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| LangGraph | ≥ 0.2.0 | State machine orchestration |
| PydanticAI | ≥ 0.0.14 | Schema validation |
| MCP | ≥ 1.0.0 | Web search + tool calls |
| FastAPI | ≥ 0.115.0 | Orchestrator API |
| Python | ≥ 3.11 | Type system requirements |

---

*AgenThink · Kuwait City · ADGM-Registered · MIT License*