# Agentreg – DNS for AI agents (self-hosted, single Go binary) > Source: > Published: 2026-07-25 11:08:55+00:00 **DNS for AI agents.** A self-hosted registry that lets your agents find each other by capability — with health and trust built in. Everyone is building AI agents. Nobody is building the layer that lets agents **exist alongside each other** — discovery, health, trust. The moment you run more than a couple of MCP servers, you're hardcoding endpoints in config files, finding out an agent is down only when something breaks, and trusting every endpoint blindly. MCP gave agents a common language. `agentreg` gives them a place to find each other. Consul tells youwherea service is.`agentreg` tells youwhatan agent can do,whetherit's healthy, and (soon)how much to trust it. One Go binary. Self-hosted. No cloud, no account, no cluster. Runs on your laptop at 3 agents and scales with you. ``` # Homebrew (macOS / Linux) brew install mkk2026/tap/agentreg # or download a binary from the latest release # https://github.com/mkk2026/agentreg/releases # or from source (Go 1.26+) go install github.com/mkk2026/agentreg@latest # 1. run the registry agentctl serve & # 2. register your agents agentctl register search-agent -c search -e http://localhost:3000 agentctl register db-agent -c db-read -e http://localhost:3001 agentctl register product-api -c api,email -e http://localhost:3002 # 3. see everything, with live health agentctl list # 4. discover by capability — use this in your agent's startup instead of a hardcoded URL agentctl find search agentctl find search --format json ``` `agentctl list` : ``` NAME CAPABILITIES STATUS SOURCE LAST HEARTBEAT ENDPOINT db-agent db-read unhealthy local just now http://localhost:3001 product-api api,email healthy local just now http://localhost:3002 search-agent search healthy local just now http://localhost:3000 ``` The daemon health-checks every registered agent on an interval, so a down agent shows up as `unhealthy` **before** it breaks something downstream. That's the difference between reading a status table and debugging a production incident backwards. **Capability-first discovery.** Ask for what you need (`find search` ), not where it lives. Endpoints move; capabilities don't.**Health built in.** Every agent is probed on a heartbeat. No separate monitoring stack to wire up.**Self-hosted, zero cloud.** One static binary. Your registry, your data, your network. Nothing leaves your machine.**Delightful at 3 agents, load-bearing at 30.** Cheap enough to adopt before you need it, so it's already there when you do.**Built to grow into trust.** The verification layer is pluggable from day one (see[Roadmap](#roadmap)). ``` agentctl (CLI) ──HTTP──▶ agentreg daemon │ ├── Store in-memory + atomic JSON persistence └── Verifier health probe, on a heartbeat loop ``` Two design seams make the roadmap additive instead of a rewrite: - on every record (`Source` field`local` today;`peer:` ,`from:ans` ,`from:mcp_registry` later) so federation and cross-registry ingestion don't require a migration. - — v1 ships a health probe; ANS-identity, prompt-injection, and`Verifier` interface`tools/list` verifiers plug into the same seam. - — optional operator metadata (`labels` `env` ,`team` ,`version` , …) that rides along on every record and shows up in`list` . Set it via the API today: ``` curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/agents -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \ -d '{"name":"corebrim-search","capabilities":["search"], "endpoint":"http://10.0.0.12:3000", "labels":{"env":"prod","team":"platform","version":"1.4.2"}}' ``` agentreg | MCP Registry | Consul | ANS (IETF) | | |---|---|---|---|---| | Self-hosted, no cloud dependency | ✅ | ❌ (cloud) | ✅ | ~ (ref impl) | | Capability-based discovery | ✅ | ✅ | ~ (tags) | ✅ | | Health checks built in | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | | Single binary, 30-second setup | ✅ | n/a | ❌ (cluster) | ❌ | | Cross-org trust / verification | 🔜 (pluggable) | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ (spec) | | Purpose-built for agents/MCP | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | `agentreg` isn't trying to out-spec the standards bodies — it's the tool developers actually run, built to interoperate with them. | Method | Path | Purpose | |---|---|---| `POST` | `/agents` | register an agent (JSON body) | `GET` | `/agents` | list all agents | `GET` | `/agents/find?capability=X` | find by capability | `POST` | `/agents/{name}/heartbeat` | agent self-reports healthy | `GET` | `/healthz` | daemon liveness | ``` agentctl serve --port 8080 # listen port --store ~/.agentreg/registry.json # persistence file --heartbeat-interval 15s # how often to health-check agents --probe-timeout 3s # per-agent probe timeout ``` `agentreg` ships as the smallest lovable loop first, then grows toward being the trust fabric agents rely on. **v0.1 — the loop (now).** register · list · find · heartbeat, single binary.**Next — trust.** Pluggable verifiers: ANS identity,`tools/list` validation, prompt-injection checks. Verification-as-a-service.**Next — federation.**`agentctl federate` across registries; the`Source` field lights up.**Later — the fabric.** One client that discovers and verifies across every registry (ANS, MCP Registry, local), so agents transact across org boundaries safely. Delightful extras on the list: a live `list` TUI, `agentctl doctor` , `agentctl graph` , and zero-config auto-register from an MCP manifest. Early days, and help is welcome. Open an issue to discuss a change, or send a PR. ``` git clone https://github.com/mkk2026/agentreg cd agentreg go test ./... go build -o agentctl . ``` [MIT](/mkk2026/agentreg/blob/main/LICENSE) © Core Brim Tech Built by Core Brim Tech · agents deserve a substrate.