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Specification (1.0)Introduction

Introduction

The Open eXecution Protocol (OXP) defines standard formats for communication between agents and tools in distributed systems. Designed specifically for multi-user, web-based, cloud-based, and multi-agent systems, OXP creates clear rules for how tools are defined, how requests are made, and how responses are structured - ensuring all components can reliably interact with each other.

This document defines the structures and protocols used to describe tools, initiate tool calls, and process responses. The standard consists of a set of JSON schemas that govern tool definitions, tool requests, and tool responses as described in the OXP OpenAPI spec . It aims to provide a unified, extensible, and interoperable framework for client-to-tool interactions.

The key words “MUST”, “MUST NOT”, “REQUIRED”, “SHALL”, “SHALL NOT”, “SHOULD”, “SHOULD NOT”, “RECOMMENDED”, “NOT RECOMMENDED”, “MAY”, and “OPTIONAL” in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14  [RFC2119 ] [RFC8174 ] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.

Terminology

  • Tool: A service or function that can be invoked by an agent using the defined protocols.
  • Tool Server: An entity that hosts a collection of tools and provides a trusted execution environment for executing tools (functions or services).
  • Agent: An entity that issues requests to Tool Servers to execute tools.

Design Principles

The Open eXecution Protocol is designed to be:

  • Familiar: The standard is designed to feel comfortable to developers who are familiar with REST and JSON.
  • Interoperable: The standard is intended to promote interoperability between agents and tools. It is designed to be easy to implement for different languages and frameworks.
  • Lightweight: The standard is designed to be lightweight and easy to understand.
  • Extensible: The standard is designed to be extensible. New parameters or response types can be added as additional properties in the respective schemas.

Editors

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