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Welcome to Route ANS

Route ANS is a high-performance Agent Name System (ANS) resolver that enables secure, decentralized discovery of AI agents through semantic versioning and certificate verification.

What is ANS?

The Agent Name System (ANS) provides a standardized naming and discovery mechanism for AI agents, similar to how DNS works for websites. ANS enables:

  • 🔍 Agent Discovery - Find agents by capability and protocol
  • 📦 Version Negotiation - Request compatible agent versions using semantic versioning
  • 🔒 Trust Verification - Verify agent authenticity through certificate fingerprints
  • 🌐 Protocol Support - MCP, A2A, ACP, HTTPS protocols
  • ⚡ High Performance - Sub-millisecond resolution with caching

Quick Example

# Resolve an agent
curl "http://localhost:8080/v1/resolve?name=mcp://chatbot.conversation.PID-5678.v1.2.3.example.com"

# Get latest compatible version
curl "http://localhost:8080/v1/resolve?name=mcp://chatbot.conversation.PID-5678.v1.0.0.example.com&version=^1.0.0"

# Response
{
  "status": "verified",
  "agent": "mcp://chatbot.conversation.PID-5678.v1.2.3.example.com",
  "protocol": "mcp",
  "endpoint": "https://agent.example.com:8443",
  "certFingerprint": "SHA256:abc123...",
  "expiresAt": "2025-01-15T00:00:00Z"
}

Key Features

🚀 Performance

  • Sub-millisecond response with memory/Redis caching
  • Concurrent resolution for batch requests
  • Connection pooling to registries
  • Horizontal scaling support

🔐 Security

  • Certificate verification via SHA-256 fingerprints
  • TLS/mTLS support for secure communication
  • Trust store validation for strict mode
  • Rate limiting to prevent abuse

📊 Semantic Versioning

  • Caret ranges (^1.2.3) - Compatible updates
  • Tilde ranges (~1.2.3) - Patch-level updates
  • Wildcards (1.x, 1.2.x) - Flexible matching
  • Operators (>=1.0.0, <2.0.0) - Precise control

🔌 Extensible

  • Pluggable registries - GoDaddy, custom backends
  • Cache providers - Memory, Redis, custom
  • Multiple protocols - MCP, A2A, ACP, HTTPS
  • Custom extensions - Protocol-specific metadata

Getting Started

Installation

# Download binary
wget https://github.com/route-ans/route-ans/releases/latest/download/ans-resolver-linux-amd64
chmod +x ans-resolver-linux-amd64

# Or use Docker
docker run -p 8080:8080 ghcr.io/route-ans/route-ans:latest

# Or build from source
git clone https://github.com/route-ans/route-ans
cd route-ans
make build

Basic Configuration

# config.yaml
server:
  host: 0.0.0.0
  port: 8080

cache:
  provider: memory
  ttl:
    default: 300s

registries:
  - name: godaddy
    type: godaddy
    config:
      apiKey: "${GODADDY_API_KEY}"
      apiSecret: "${GODADDY_API_SECRET}"

trust:
  provider: file
  verification:
    enabled: true
    mode: permissive

Run the Resolver

# Start server
./ans-resolver --config config.yaml

# Test resolution
curl http://localhost:8080/health

Documentation

📚 For Users

🔧 For Operators

🏗️ For Developers

Use Cases

Agent Discovery

Find and connect to AI agents by capability: 

# Find translation agent
curl "http://localhost:8080/v1/resolve?name=a2a://translation.text.PID-1234.v2.0.0.agents.org"

Version Negotiation

Request compatible versions automatically: 

# Get any 1.x version (backwards compatible)
curl "http://localhost:8080/v1/resolve?name=mcp://agent.PID-123.v1.0.0.example.com&version=^1.0.0"

Service Mesh

Enable secure agent-to-agent communication: 

# agents can discover and communicate securely
agent-a → ANS Resolver → agent-b

Multi-Protocol Support

Support different communication protocols:

  • MCP - Model Context Protocol for AI models
  • A2A - Agent-to-Agent messaging
  • ACP - Agent Communication Protocol
  • HTTPS - Standard REST APIs

Architecture

flowchart TD
    A[Clients] -->|HTTP/HTTPS| B[ANS Resolver]

    subgraph B[ANS Resolver]
        C[HTTP Server]
        D[Resolver Core]
        E[Cache]
        F[Registry Adapter]

        C --> D --> E --> F
    end

    F --> G[GoDaddy or Custom]

Performance

Typical performance metrics:

  • Cached resolution: <1ms
  • Uncached resolution: 50-200ms
  • Throughput: 10K+ req/s (single instance)
  • Cache hit rate: >80% typical
  • Memory usage: ~50MB base

Community

Contributing

We welcome contributions! See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

License

Route ANS is open-source software. See LICENSE for details.

Next Steps