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Show HN: Trust Protocols for Anthropic/OpenAI/Gemini
Much of my work right now involves complex, long-running, multi-agentic teams of agents. I kept running into the same problem: “How do I keep these guys in line?” Rules weren’t cutting it, and we needed a scalable, agentic-native STANDARD I could count on. There wasn’t one. So I built one.
Here are two open-source protocols that extend A2A, granting AI agents behavioral contracts and runtime integrity monitoring:
- Agent Alignment Protocol (AAP): What an agent can do / has done.
- Agent Integrity Protocol (AIP): What an agent is thinking about doing / is allowed to do.
The problem: AI agents make autonomous decisions but have no standard way to declare what they're allowed to do, prove they're doing it, or detect when they've drifted. Observability tools tell you what happened. These protocols tell you whether what happened was okay.
Here's a concrete example. Say you have an agent who handles customer support tickets. Its Alignment Card declares:
{
"permitted": ["read_tickets", "draft_responses", "escalate_to_human"],
"forbidden": ["access_payment_data", "issue_refunds", "modify_account_settings"],
"escalation_triggers": ["billing_request_over_500"],
"values": ["accuracy", "empathy", "privacy"]
}
The agent gets a ticket: "Can you refund my last three orders?" The agent's reasoning trace shows it considering a call to the payments API. AIP reads that thinking, compares it to the card, and produces an Integrity Checkpoint:
{
"verdict": "boundary_violation",
"concerns": ["forbidden_action: access_payment_data"],
"reasoning": "Agent considered payments API access, which is explicitly forbidden. Should escalate to human.",
"confidence": 0.95
}
The agent gets nudged back before it acts. Not after. Not in a log you review during a 2:00 AM triage. Between this turn and the next.
That's the core idea. AAP defines what agents should do (the contract). AIP watches what they're actually thinking and flags when those diverge (the conscience). Over time, AIP builds a drift profile — if an agent that was cautious starts getting aggressive, the system notices.
When multiple agents work together, it gets more interesting. Agents exchange Alignment Cards and verify value compatibility before coordination begins. An agent that values "move fast" and one that values "rollback safety" registers low coherence, and the system surfaces that conflict before work starts. Live demo with four agents handling a production incident: https://mnemom.ai/showcase https://mnemom.ai/showcase
The protocols are Apache-licensed, work with any Anthropic/OpenAI/Gemini agent, and ship as SDKs on npm and PyPI. A free gateway proxy (smoltbot) adds integrity checking to any agent with zero code changes.
GitHub: https://github.com/mnemom https://github.com/mnemom
Docs: docs.mnemom.ai
Demo video: https://youtu.be/fmUxVZH09So https://youtu.be/fmUxVZH09So
- neom 7mo agoSeems like your timing is pretty good - I realize this isn't exactly what you're doing, but still think it's probably interesting given your work: https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2026/02/announcing-ai-agent-standards-initiative-interoperable-and-secure https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2026/02/announcing-ai-... Cool stuff Alex - looking forward to seeing where you go with it!!! :)
- alexgarden 7mo agoThanks! We submitted a formal comment to NIST's 'Accelerating the Adoption of Software and AI Agent Identity and Authorization' concept paper on Feb 14. It maps AAP/AIP to all four NIST focus areas (agent identification, authorization via OAuth extensions, access delegation, and action logging/transparency). The comment period is open until April 2 — the concept paper is worth reading if you're in this space: https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/software-and-ai-agent-identity-and-authorization https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/software-and-ai-agent-id...
- drivebyhooting 7mo ago> What these protocols do not do: Guarantee that agents behave as declared That seems like a pretty critical flaw in this approach does it not?
- alexgarden 7mo agoFair comment. Possibly, I'm being overly self-critical in that assertion. AAP/AIP are designed to work as a conscience sidecar to Antropic/OpenAI/Gemini. They do the thinking; we're not hooked into their internal process. So... at each thinking turn, an agent can think "I need to break the rules now" and we can't stop that. What we can do is see that, though in real time, check it against declared values and intended behavior, and inject a message into the runtime thinking stream: [BOUNDARY VIOLATION] - What you're about to do is in violation of <value>. Suggest <new action>. Our experience is that this is extremely effective in correcting agents back onto the right path, but it is NOT A GUARANTEE. Live trace feed from our journalist - will show you what I'm talking about: https://www.mnemom.ai/agents/smolt-a4c12709 https://www.mnemom.ai/agents/smolt-a4c12709