Specification
AACP v1.4-draft
Agent Action Compression Protocol. Status: Measured, draft, not yet production-validated.
1. Packet format
An AACP packet is a pipe-delimited sequence. TASK and DOM are positional (fields 0 and 1). All other fields are named key:value pairs. No empty positional slots.
TASK|DOM|return:AGENT|p:PRIORITY|aacp:VERSION|key:value|key:value...
2. Required fields
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| TASK | Positional field 0. Action verb. |
| DOM | Positional field 1. Domain context. |
| return: | Agent or role the response goes to. |
| aacp: | Protocol version (e.g. 1.1). |
3. Valid TASK values
FETCH PROC FLAG RESOLVE LOG SEND BUILD MERGE CALC REPORT ACK SYNC
4. Valid DOM values
HR FIN SALES LEGAL IT CS MKT
5. Common optional keys
res: period: filter: fields: fmt: and all extended fields.
6. Examples
Fetch
FETCH|HR|return:HR-Agent|p:1|aacp:1.4|res:emp_salary|period:2024-08|filter:status=active|fmt:json
Merge
MERGE|HR|return:HR-Agent|p:1|aacp:1.4|rules:payroll_v2|validate:budget_cc
Flag legal clause
FLAG|LEGAL|return:LEG-Agent|p:1|aacp:1.4|type:NDA|party:Acme-Ltd|clause:s7|issue:ip_rights_restriction|risk:high|block:signature
IT provisioning
BUILD|IT|return:IT-Agent|p:1|aacp:1.4|res:ad_account|filter:usr=j.smith|fields:email,dept,grp,pwd_reset
7. Extensibility
Unknown keys are advisory warnings, not errors. Domain-specific keys are encouraged. Consider namespacing with a prefix (e.g. acme_internal:...) for organisation-private semantics.
8. Compression boundaries
- Coordination tokens: compress well. Routing, references, structural intent.
- Task tokens: do not compress. The actual model work (read this contract, draft this email).
- Emotional / relational context: compresses poorly. Use slow-mode for human-facing replies.
9. Version policy
Breaking changes bump the major. Additive keys are minor. Pin the version explicitly with the aacp: key.
10. Licence
MIT. Use freely; contribute back if you can.
This page matches the README on github.com/MackayAndrew/aacp. Measured benchmarks published on the calculator page; additional workflows in progress.