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Show HN: AgentBridge – translate and govern calls between AI agent protocols

AgentBridge, an open-source Python project, provides a neutral mesh for translating, routing, verifying, and governing calls between different AI agent protocols, including MCP, A2A, ACP, OpenAI function-calling, Gemini function-calling, and AGNTCY ACP. The working prototype includes a governance plane with Ed25519 identities, budgets, and a tamper-evident audit trail, and is available on GitHub as an early work-in-progress.

read9 min publishedJun 15, 2026

One neutral mesh every agent speaks through: translate, route, verify, govern. Any protocol in, any protocol out — with identity, budgets, and a tamper-evident audit trail built into the call path.

The whole product in 12 seconds: an unknown agent blocked, six protocols reaching one live MCP tool through the mesh, budget tracked, tamper-evident audit chain verified. Reproduce with python examples/demo_story.py.

Status: working prototype. 6 protocols live + conformance-tested against real SDKs, a governance plane, an HTTP control plane, and framework integrations.

150 tests passing (156 with a Postgres DB).Business demand still being validated — this is an early, honest work-in-progress.

Name note:this project (github.com/shadowhunter-92/agentbridge

) is a Pythonprotocol-translation + governance mesh. It is unrelated to other products that may share the "AgentBridge" name (e.g. connector-gateway SaaS at other domains). This repo is the source of truth forthisAgentBridge.

What it does · Quick start · Talk to agents yourself · Protocol support matrix · Architecture · Security model · Framework integrations · Enterprise governance · Editions & pricing · Docs

N-protocol mesh (any-to-any): MCP (Anthropic), A2A (Google/LF), ACP (IBM/LF), OpenAI function-calling, Gemini function-calling, AGNTCY ACP. One canonical model → adding a protocol is one adapter, not N² mappings. Every adapter is validated against the protocol'sreal official SDK.** In-line proxy:**the bridge actually sitsbetweenlive agents on different protocols, not just translating (seeexamples/

).Governance plane (the moat): Ed25519 agent identities (DIDs), per-agent spend/rate budgets, human-in-the-loop approvals for sensitive capabilities, and a hash-chained tamper-evident audit trail — allenforced in the call path anddurable(SQLite; Postgres-swappable).** Enterprise governance:**a declarative policy engine (cost caps, business-hours, route/ capability rules), RBAC for operators, OIDC/JWT operator SSO, and signed audit checkpoints (seedocs/ENTERPRISE.md

).Drop-in MCP server: point Claude Desktop / an IDE / a gateway at it to reach other protocols.Framework integrations: one helper lets LangChain / CrewAI / AutoGen / LlamaIndex agents reach a tool/agent onanyprotocol — they all emit OpenAI-shaped tool calls (seedocs/INTEGRATIONS.md

).

python -m venv .venv && .venv/Scripts/pip install -r requirements.txt   # (Windows; use bin/ on *nix)

Governance is optional. If you just want one agent/protocol to talk to another, use the mesh directly — no keys, no budgets, no setup:

from src.protocols import default_registry as reg
from src.protocols.canonical import CanonicalCall

call = reg.get("openai").from_canonical_call(CanonicalCall("add", {"a": 2, "b": 3}))
reg.translate_call(call, "openai", "mcp")     # -> a real MCP tools/call. That's it.
.venv/Scripts/python examples/quickstart.py   # translate + bridge to a LIVE tool, zero governance

Add identity, budgets, and a tamper-evident audit trail only when you want them:

uvicorn src.api.control_plane:app          # docs at http://localhost:8000/docs

python -m src.serve.mcp_gateway

.venv/Scripts/python examples/live_nprotocol_proxy.py   # OpenAI/ACP -> live MCP, MCP -> live ACP
.venv/Scripts/python examples/live_governed_proxy.py    # identity + budget + audit in action
.venv/Scripts/python examples/policy_guardrails_demo.py # policy BLOCKS risky calls + provable audit trail

.venv/Scripts/python -m pytest tests/ -q                # 150 passing; 156 with a Postgres DB (6 PG tests skip without one)

Yes — you can use AgentBridge to reach an agent/tool that speaks a different protocol than you do. That's the whole point. Give it a call in any protocol's shape; it translates and (if you want) governs, then delivers to the live target and hands the result back:

import asyncio
from src.integrations import bridge_tool_call
from src.proxy import transport

async def main():
    result = await bridge_tool_call(
        "add", {"a": 2, "b": 3}, to="mcp",
        invoke=lambda w: transport.call_mcp_tool(
            "python", ["examples/mcp_server_agent.py"], w["params"]["name"], w["params"]["arguments"]),
    )
    print(result)        # -> OpenAI-shaped tool result: "5"

asyncio.run(main())

Swap to="mcp"

for a2a

, acp

, gemini

, or agntcy

to reach an agent on that protocol.

Human client (discover + talk, from the CLI). Point it at any agent, see what it can do, and call it — across protocols:

python -m src.serve.agent_client discover --mcp "python examples/mcp_server_agent.py"
python -m src.serve.agent_client discover --a2a http://localhost:9100

python -m src.serve.agent_client call --mcp "python examples/mcp_server_agent.py" --tool add --args '{"a":2,"b":3}'
python -m src.serve.agent_client talk --a2a http://localhost:9100 --message "hello"

Reaching real third-party tools (GitHub, Slack, Notion, …) works the same way — you point the bridge at the tool's existing MCP server, no connector to build. See docs/CONNECTORS.md and the worked GitHub example (

examples/github_mcp_bridge.py

).| Protocol | Owner | Adapter | Conformance vs real SDK | Any-to-any | Live agent | |---|---|---|---|---|---| MCP | Anthropic | ✅ | ✅ mcp 1.27 (CallToolRequestParams ) | ✅ | ✅ FastMCP server (stdio) | A2A | Google / LF | ✅ | ✅ a2a-sdk 0.3 (Task , Message ) | ✅ | ✅ uvicorn agent + AgentCard | ACP | IBM / BeeAI / LF | ✅ | ✅ acp-sdk 1.0 (Run , Message ) | ✅ | ✅ REST /runs agent | OpenAI function-calling | OpenAI | ✅ | ✅ openai 2.x (ChatCompletionMessageToolCall ) | ✅ | ✅ routed to live MCP/ACP | Gemini function-calling | ✅ | ✅ google-genai (FunctionCall ) | ✅ | ✅ routed to live MCP | | AGNTCY ACP | Cisco | ✅ | ✅ agntcy-acp (RunCreateStateless ) | ✅ | ✅ routed to live MCP | ANP | — | ⛔ deferred → governance plane | — | — | — |

6 call protocols, 6×6 = 36 any-to-any pairs, all green. Adding a 7th is one adapter file + one registry line + one conformance test. Full detail: docs/PROTOCOL_SUPPORT.md

. ANP is an identity/discovery layer, not a call protocol — it informs the governance plane, not an adapter (see docs/PROTOCOL_SUPPORT.md

).

flowchart LR
    subgraph clients [Agents / clients - any protocol]
        C1[MCP client]
        C2[A2A / ACP agent]
        C3[OpenAI / Gemini / AGNTCY]
    end
    subgraph bridge [AgentBridge]
        direction TB
        G[Governance gateway<br/>identity · budget · approval · audit]
        M[Canonical mesh<br/>any-to-any translation]
        G --> M
    end
    subgraph targets [Target agents / tools - any protocol]
        T1[live MCP tool]
        T2[live A2A / ACP agent]
    end
    C1 & C2 & C3 -->|signed call| G
    M -->|translated + governed| T1 & T2
    OP[Operator] -->|admin API| G

Every call enters the governance gateway (verify identity → reserve budget → check approval), is translated through the canonical mesh (any protocol → any protocol), is delivered to the target agent, then committed and written to a tamper-evident audit log.

src/protocols/

— canonical hub + per-protocol adapters (the mesh)src/governance/

— identity, audit, budgets, approvals, policy, gateway, persistence (the moat)src/proxy/

— real transport clients + in-line proxysrc/api/control_plane.py

— the shipped HTTP API (mesh + governed routing, authenticated)src/serve/mcp_gateway.py

— drop-in MCP server packaging

Deployment topology: run it as a drop-in MCP server (per-developer), as a central control-plane API (team), or inline as a proxy between agents. See docs/DEPLOYMENT.md

. Performance overhead is measured in docs/BENCHMARKS.md

.

Operator endpoints require an admin key (X-Admin-Key

) or — with OIDC configured — an IdP bearer token; every endpoint isRBAC-enforced(admin/operator/viewer).** Agent endpointsrequire Ed25519 signed requests**(X-Agent-Id

/X-Nonce

/X-Signature

) with nonce replay protection. Identities can be revoked.Per-IP rate limiting on/control/*

(blunts admin-key brute force;AGENTBRIDGE_RATE_LIMIT

).- Audit is hash-chained and tamper-evident; export via /control/audit/export

.

Chosen from AGENTBRIDGE_DB

: unset → in-memory; a file path → SQLite (single node); a postgres://

URL → Postgres (multi-instance; pip install "psycopg[binary]"

).

The audit-chain append and budget reserve/commit are atomic store-side operations (SQLite BEGIN IMMEDIATE

/ Postgres advisory locks), so multiple workers/replicas are safe when they share a durable store — the chain can't fork and budgets can't double-spend (tests/test_concurrency.py

proves it across separate connections + threads). Use the in-memory store for single-worker/dev only. See docs/ENTERPRISE.md

Concurrency & scaling.

These frameworks all emit OpenAI-shaped tool calls, so one helper lets any of them reach a tool/agent on any protocol through the bridge — zero new dependencies:

from src.integrations import bridge_tool_call
result = await bridge_tool_call("add", {"a": 2, "b": 3}, to="mcp", invoke=your_transport)

Per-framework wrapping recipes (LangChain StructuredTool

, CrewAI @tool

, AutoGen function, LlamaIndex FunctionTool

) are in docs/INTEGRATIONS.md

.

Real, tested controls enterprises ask for — all live over the control-plane HTTP API:

Declarative policy engine— per-call cost caps, approval-above-cost, capability allow/deny, business-hours-only, blocked protocol routes (POST /control/policy/rules

).RBACadmin

/operator

/viewer

roles → permissions, enforced per endpoint.OIDC / JWT operator SSO— verify an IdP token (Okta/Azure AD/Auth0/Keycloak), role claim → RBAC role; replaces the shared admin key.** Signed audit checkpoints**— third-party-verifiable proof the audit log wasn't truncated; JSONL export feeds SIEMs (Splunk/Datadog/S3).

Full usage + code: docs/ENTERPRISE.md

. (Honestly not shipped as code: managed hosting and SOC 2 — those are operations and an audit process, not a library feature.)

Governance in the call path: a policy blocks a forbidden capability, an over-budget call, and a needs-approval call — then a hash-chained, integrity-verified audit trail of every allow/deny. This is what EU AI Act Article 12 (automatic event logging for high-risk AI, from Aug 2026) looks like at runtime. Reproduce with python examples/policy_guardrails_demo.py.

Watch the 54-second explainer (motion graphics + voiceover): shadowhunter-92.github.io/agentbridge/media/explainer.html — source: media/explainer.html.

Open-core: the mesh + basic governance are free and self-hostable (Apache 2.0). Monetization is hosted governance/compliance, not the translation (which is commoditizing). Indicative tiers (hypotheses to validate with customers, not live products):

Edition Who What Price (hypothesis)
OSS core
builders mesh + basic governance + drop-in MCP server, self-host $0
Pro / Team
startups hosted control plane, dashboard, persistence, support ~$99–499/mo
Business
scale-ups RBAC/SSO, cost analytics, alerts, SLA ~$1k–5k/mo
Compliance
regulated (finance/health/HR) EU-AI-Act audit pack, signed export, DPA ~$2k–10k+/mo

Detail + the demand-gated roadmap: docs/ROADMAP.md

.

docs/DEPLOYMENT.md

— how to run it, configure it, and the honest production checklistdocs/API_REFERENCE.md

— the control-plane HTTP endpointsdocs/INTEGRATIONS.md

— wire LangChain / CrewAI / AutoGen / LlamaIndex to any protocoldocs/CONNECTORS.md

— reach GitHub / Slack / Notion / … via their MCP servers (no connectors to build)docs/ENTERPRISE.md

— policy engine v2, RBAC, OIDC SSO, signed audit checkpointsdocs/ROADMAP.md

— what's done, known limitations, and what's deferred (honest)docs/PROTOCOL_SUPPORT.md

— the protocol support matrix + conformance approachdocs/LIVE_AGENT_TESTING.md

— how the bridge is tested against real, running agentsdocs/PROTOBUF_A2A.md

— notes on A2A's JSON-RPC vs protobuf wire formatsdocs/BENCHMARKS.md

— measured in-process overhead (reproduce withtools/benchmark.py

)CONTRIBUTING.md

— setup, ground rules, and the add-a-protocol recipeAI_DISCLOSURE.md

— transparency on AI-assisted development

Apache 2.0

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