# Chapter 17: Agent Communication Protocols

> 🔌 *"Agents need standardized communication methods, just as humans need a common language."*

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## Chapter Overview

As the Agent ecosystem rapidly evolves, standardized communication protocols are becoming increasingly important. MCP (Model Context Protocol) defines the connection standard between Agents and tools/data sources, while the A2A (Agent-to-Agent) protocol standardizes how Agents interact with each other. This chapter provides an in-depth look at the design philosophy and practical applications of these protocols.

## Chapter Goals

After completing this chapter, you will be able to:

- ✅ Understand the architectural design and core concepts of the MCP protocol
- ✅ Implement MCP Servers and Clients
- ✅ Understand the design philosophy of the A2A protocol
- ✅ Master practical patterns for message passing and state sharing between Agents
- ✅ Build a tool integration system based on MCP

## Chapter Structure

| Section | Content | Difficulty |
|---------|---------|-----------|
| 17.1 MCP Protocol Deep Dive | Design and implementation of Model Context Protocol | ⭐⭐⭐ |
| 17.2 A2A Protocol | Agent-to-Agent communication standard | ⭐⭐⭐ |
| 17.3 ANP Protocol | Agent Network Protocol | ⭐⭐⭐ |
| 17.4 Inter-Agent Message Passing | Communication patterns in practice | ⭐⭐⭐ |
| 17.5 Practice: MCP-Based Tool Integration | Complete implementation | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ |

## ⏱️ Estimated Study Time

Approximately **90–120 minutes** (including hands-on exercises)

## 💡 Prerequisites

- Completed Chapter 16 Multi-Agent Collaboration
- Familiarity with basic communication protocol concepts like JSON-RPC
- Basic Python asynchronous programming (`asyncio`)

## 🔗 Learning Path

> **Prerequisites**: [Chapter 16: Multi-Agent Collaboration](../chapter_multi_agent/README.md), [Chapter 4: Tool Calls](../chapter_tools/README.md)
>
> **Recommended next steps**:
> - 👉 [Chapter 18: Evaluation and Optimization](../chapter_evaluation/README.md) — Enter the production chapter
> - 👉 [Chapter 20: Deployment and Production](../chapter_deployment/README.md) — Deploy MCP-based Agent services

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*Next section: [17.1 MCP (Model Context Protocol) Deep Dive](./01_mcp_protocol.md)*