World Agent Web – Protocols for AI agents to discover and use web services
4 comments
Why not just use function calling (OpenAI/Claude)?
Function calling requires the client to define functions upfront.
WAW enables server-side capability description.
Think of it as: - Function calling: Client tells LLM "here are tools you can use" - WAW: Service tells agent "here's what I can do"
You can actually combine them—use WAW manifests to auto-generate function definitions dynamically. We show this in the demo.
Think of it as: - Function calling: Client tells LLM "here are tools you can use" - WAW: Service tells agent "here's what I can do"
You can actually combine them—use WAW manifests to auto-generate function definitions dynamically. We show this in the demo.
Interesting. I'll take it for a spin
Wow, This seems interesting!
The Problem: Today, AI agents access web services through either: - Web search + HTML scraping (fragile, breaks when sites change) - Hardcoded custom integrations (doesn't scale)
Neither approach works well. Agents need a standardized way to discover what services can do and how to invoke them.
The Solution: WAW introduces manifest-based discovery (similar to robots.txt, but for agents): - Services publish a manifest describing their capabilities - Agents discover these dynamically at runtime - Type-safe invocation with JSON Schema validation - No hardcoded integrations needed
Think of it as: HTTP is to the World Wide Web what WAW is to the Agent Web.
Live Demo: - Working services: https://web-production-73c2.up.railway.app - Autonomous Claude agent: https://github.com/Fredbcx/waw/tree/main/demo - The agent discovers services, understands capabilities, and books restaurants autonomously
Positioning: WAW complements existing protocols: - MCP (Model Context Protocol): Desktop/local tool integration - A2A (Agent-to-Agent): Multi-agent collaboration - WAW: Web service discovery and invocation
They solve different problems and work together.
What I'm looking for feedback on: 1. Protocol design - does the spec make sense? 2. Use cases I'm missing 3. Integration patterns with existing systems 4. Whether this actually solves a real problem you have
The protocol is MIT licensed and designed to be community-driven. I see service registries (like Google for agent services) and micropayments (x402) as inevitable future infrastructure, but wanted to validate the core protocol first.
Links: - GitHub: https://github.com/Fredbcx/waw - Live site: https://web-production-73c2.up.railway.app - Spec: https://github.com/Fredbcx/waw/blob/main/docs/SPECIFICATION.md
Would love your thoughts!