From Protocol to Practice: The Hidden Operational Layers of Multi-Agent Systems

While A2A and MCP standardize message routing and tool access, they don't address the semantic drift that emerges when running multi-agent systems at scale. In production, meaning preservation failures—corrupted interpretations, concept drift, and knowledge graph contamination—accumulate across agent interactions, requiring architectural controls that existing protocols don't provide. This matters because teams deploying multi-agent systems must anticipate and build for these hidden operational challenges from the start.