The Federated Agent Secure Transport (FAST): A Secure Fabric for the Orchestration of Multi-Agent Collaboration

Dheepak Gobinath

Abstract: To progress from isolated multi-agent simulations to a truly interconnected artificial intelligence, a paradigm shift from centralized control to decentralized communication is necessary. This paper introduces the Federated Agent Secure Transport (FAST), a novel, decentralized framework for Agent-to-Agent (A2A) communication that enables this shift. This architecture stands in contrast to prevailing multi-agent systems like Auto-GPT and CrewAI, which are confined to centralized, monolithic environments. Their reliance on inter-process calls within a single runtime inherently limits scalability, security, and interoperability, precluding the formation of a truly open agent ecosystem. The FAST framework synthesizes two core components: (1) a peer-to-peer protocol for secure, end-to-end encrypted message transport, and (2) a standardized Model Context Protocol (MCP) that serves as a semantic language for task delegation and data exchange. This paradigm, however, also introduces new attack surfaces at the semantic layer, where malicious agents can craft MCP payloads to perform sophisticated prompt-injection attacks on their counterparts. By decoupling the communication layer from the agent's core logic, this architecture allows agents from different entities to interact in a trustless manner. This fosters the conditions for an open market of specialized AI services and enables a new generation of scalable, resilient, and secure collaborative AI, laying the groundwork for a true Internet of Agents.