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 (Agent-to-Agent) 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 A2A building blocks — 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 A2A, 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 fail in production – context loss, inconsistent handoffs, poor visibility, and unreliable sub-task delegation
• A2A Protocol Fundamentals – standardizing agent discovery, capability signaling, tasks, artifacts, and streaming
• Agent Discovery with Agent Cards – skills, modalities, endpoints, versioning, and trust boundaries
• Scalable Orchestration Patterns – Supervisor → Router → Specialist teams, and contract-based delegation with clear inputs/outputs
• Tool-Using Agents vs Agent-to-Agent Collaboration – understanding how A2A complements MCP
• Long-Running Task Management – designing task lifecycles, handling partial outputs, cancellations, retries, fallbacks, and resumable execution
• Streaming Progress & Artifact Delivery – real-time updates and structured outputs you can store and reuse
• Production Considerations – observability, debugging, governance, authentication 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.