Agent Discovery

Agent discovery answers: "What agent exists here, what can it do, and what evidence should a client inspect before using it?"

Discovery is not only a lookup step. It is the first trust boundary in the Agentic Web Stack.

Core Pattern

What Clients Should Check

Domain and transport match the expected origin.
Agent Card version is supported.
Skills and output modes match the intended task.
Authentication schemes and required scopes are explicit.
Registry or catalog metadata confirms approved use when governance requires it.
Cache headers and ETags are honored so stale metadata does not silently drive work.

Demo Mapping

The local demo exposes a public Agent Card and a registry entry:

agent-card.json describes the agent.
agent-registry.yaml describes local approval and trust metadata.
GET /.well-known/agent-card.json serves localized discovery metadata.
GET /registry/agents/literature-review-assistant serves the demo registry entry.