A2A Protocol Workshop: Build Interoperable Multi-Agent Systems

A2A Protocol Workshop: Build Interoperable Multi-Agent Systems

The next evolution of agentic AI isn’t just “better prompts” or “more tools,” it’s agents that can collaborate across boundaries. The A2A protocol makes that collaboration practical by standardizing how agents discover each other, negotiate capabilities, exchange tasks, stream progress, and return artifacts — even when they’re built on different frameworks or run in different environments.

In this session, we’ll unpack why many multi-agent systems fail in production (fragile handoffs, unclear responsibilities, brittle integrations, and poor reliability under long-running workflows). Then we’ll introduce the core building blocks of the A2A protocol, including Agent Cards, task lifecycles, streaming updates, artifact delivery, and secure interoperability, and show how to orchestrate multiple specialist agents with clear contracts and robust coordination patterns.

A live walkthrough will demonstrate how to design a Supervisor + Specialist architecture using the A2A protocol, including real-time progress streaming, error recovery, and observable handoffs that make multi-agent workflows durable instead of demo-only.

What We Will Cover:

• Why multi-agent systems break in the real world
  • Context loss, inconsistent handoffs, lack of progress visibility, unreliable sub-task delegation
• A2A protocol fundamentals
  • What A2A standardizes (agent discovery, capability signaling, tasks, artifacts, streaming)
• Agent discovery with Agent Cards
  • Skills/capabilities, modalities, endpoints, versioning, and trust boundaries
• Orchestration patterns that scale
  • Supervisor → Router → Specialist teams
  • Contract-based delegation (clear inputs/outputs)
  • Tool-using agents vs agent-to-agent collaboration (how A2A complements MCP)
• Long-running task management
  • Task lifecycle design, partial outputs, cancellations, retries, fallbacks, and resumable execution
• Streaming progress + artifact delivery
  • Real-time updates for “what’s happening now” + structured outputs you can store and reuse
• Production considerations
  • Observability, debugging, governance, auth boundaries, and safety guardrails for agent networks

Hands-On Insights:

Through a guided demo and Q&A, you’ll learn how to:

• Stand up a simple A2A orchestrator agent that discovers specialist agents via their Agent Cards
• Delegate work across multiple agents with reliable handoffs
• Stream progress updates and collect artifacts (reports, structured data, intermediate reasoning outputs)
• Implement practical resilience (timeouts, retries, fallback agents, and error-aware routing)

You’ll leave with a clear mental model and a reusable orchestration blueprint to evolve from single-agent demos into durable multi-agent systems.