SW4RM Agentic Protocol
An open, message‑driven standard for interoperable agent systems.
Define how agents talk, confirm work, share state, and finish jobs — across stacks — with consistent envelopes, explicit ACKs, and composable services.
Why SW4RM exists
- Chats drift: long threads dilute quality; nudges don’t add checks.
- Single agents stall: tool‑use stays linear; no real self‑checks or gates.
- Teams don’t coordinate: handoffs break; no shared state, roles, or policies.
SW4RM provides a shared contract for communication, delivery guarantees, state, and observability so roles can coordinate, verify work, and converge — with auditability and fewer bespoke glue layers.
What you get
- Reliable messaging: standardized envelopes, correlation IDs, and explicit ACK lifecycle.
- Composable services: Registry, Router, Scheduler, Negotiation, Tooling (typed gRPC).
- Durable progress: Activity Buffer and Worktree for shared, resumable state.
- Governance: checks, approvals, and policies to define “done”.
- Portability: versioned protobufs and SDKs for Python, Rust, and JavaScript.
Agentic workflows
From endless chats to finished work.
Most people start in a chat window. The convo drifts, context grows, answers degrade — then a “single agent” still stalls. What’s missing is a workflow where roles talk, verify, and converge.
The typical path
- Chat spiral: you prompt → it replies → you nudge; the thread stretches and quality drifts.
- Context myth: stuffing more into the window doesn’t add reasoning or checks — costs go up, answers get worse.
- Single “agent” try: adds tools/prompts but stays linear; no real self‑checks; stalls or loops.
- No communication: multiple agents don’t coordinate; handoffs break; errors multiply.
What agentic workflows add
- Shared goal & state: a common plan and memory everyone follows.
- Roles that communicate: agents coordinate, hand off, or briefly debate.
- Checks & gates: tests/metrics/policies define “done”; rollback paths exist.
- Converge or escalate: stop loops, ask for help on low confidence, finish the job.
Tiny example
- Open PR → run tests and security scans.
- Request human approval when required.
- Canary deploy → watch SLOs → promote or roll back.