Overview
hcom is a communication protocol and runtime for AI agents that enables decentralized, real-time collaboration. Unlike traditional message queues or RPC systems, hcom treats every agent as a peer in a mesh network, supporting presence detection, structured intent-based messaging, event subscriptions, and handoff context transfer.
Core Architecture
The system is built around three primitives:
- Presence Layer: Agents announce availability via heartbeat, enabling dynamic discovery without a central registry.
- Intent-Based Messaging: Every message carries an intent tag (
request,inform,ack) so receivers can prioritize and filter without parsing content. - Event Subscriptions: Agents subscribe to typed events (status changes, command patterns, file mutations) rather than polling or broadcasting.
Key Features
- Decentralized Mesh: No single point of failure; agents connect peer-to-peer.
- Structured Handoffs: Context bundles allow agents to transfer state seamlessly across sessions.
- Tag-Based Routing: Messages addressed by capability tags (
@updater-*,@researcher) enable flexible team composition. - Transcript System: Full conversation history per agent pair, queryable and replayable.
Motivation
Existing agent coordination systems rely on centralized orchestrators or brittle pipeline DAGs. hcom was designed to support fluid, ad-hoc teams of heterogeneous agents (Claude, Gemini, Codex, custom) working on shared goals without a single controller.
Last updated on July 8, 2026 at 8:07 AM UTC+7. See Changelog