The Agent Triage Protocol is founded on eight architectural principles that ensure system reliability, scalability, and maintainability. These principles guide all implementation decisions and help maintain consistency across the protocol.
The protocol mandates non-blocking communication patterns between AI services and human decision-makers. Services submit notifications to the ATP server and continue execution without awaiting responses. This architectural decision prevents thread blocking and resource contention while accommodating the inherent latency differences between automated systems and human response times.
The protocol specification abstracts service-specific implementation details, providing a uniform interface for all AI service integrations. The ATP server processes notifications without requiring domain knowledge of the originating service. This abstraction layer ensures protocol extensibility and reduces integration complexity for new services.
The protocol defines seven enumerated response types that constrain user input while providing sufficient expressiveness for diverse use cases. This type system enables client applications to render appropriate user interface components without service-specific logic.
Security controls are implemented at multiple system boundaries with distinct authentication and authorization mechanisms. Administrative operations require separate credentials from service operations, which in turn differ from end-user authentication. Cryptographic signatures protect webhook payloads against tampering.
The protocol specification mandates graceful handling of failure conditions at all system interfaces. Notification expiration, service-initiated invalidation, and automatic retry mechanisms with exponential backoff ensure system resilience. Error states are explicitly modeled with structured error responses that enable automated recovery procedures.
While facilitating machine-to-machine communication, the protocol prioritizes human usability in its design decisions. Notification payloads include structured context with human-readable descriptions, actionable error messages, and meaningful deadline representations.
Each notification message contains complete context required for decision-making, eliminating server-side session state requirements. This stateless architecture simplifies horizontal scaling, reduces memory overhead, and improves system resilience.
The protocol supports progressive enhancement through optional features while maintaining simplicity for basic use cases. Core functionality requires minimal configuration, while advanced features such as notification grouping and conditional actions remain available for complex scenarios.
