# The Web A stack: the agentic web that exists today > The agentic web already has a stack. It is live, in five layers, with real protocols and real companies shipping each one. This page (weba.network/protocols) maps it. Every number traces to a cited source. This page is itself a Web A citizen: it serves /.well-known/ai-agent.json and /llms.txt, and any agent can find, read, and cite it. ## The framing Most of the web is invisible to agents. Cloudflare scanned the 200,000 most visited sites and found fewer than 15 carry the agent-native standards that let an agent authenticate and call a real action. The rest still speak only to old search crawlers. The gap is the opportunity. The stack stacks like a society. Each layer assumes the one below it. An agent has to find you before it can read you, read you before it can trust you, trust you before it can call you, and call you before you can settle up and cooperate. ## Layer 1. Discovery (be found) The ground floor. If an agent cannot find you, to the agentic web you do not exist. - **Protocols:** llms.txt, ai-agent.json, agents.txt, /.well-known/* - llms.txt: a plain-language file at a known address that explains a site to an agent. https://www.answer.ai/posts/2024-09-03-llmstxt.html - ai-agent.json: a machine-readable manifest. The site's business card. https://agents-txt.com/spec/ - agents.txt: states how to work with a site as an agent. - /.well-known/*: the agreed-on folder where agents already know to look. - **Who ships it:** - Answer.AI originated llms.txt (Jeremy Howard, September 2024). It is now the default discovery file. - Shopify quietly switched llms.txt, llms-full.txt, agents.md, a /.well-known/ucp folder, and an MCP endpoint on for every store in May 2026, with no merchant action. - Cloudflare measures discovery as the first of its agent-readiness categories. - **Stat:** Shopify auto-shipped these files to every store, with no merchant lifting a finger. - **Sources:** https://craftshift.com/shopify-native-llms-txt-agentic-discovery-rollout/ · https://www.answer.ai/posts/2024-09-03-llmstxt.html ## Layer 2. Content (be read) Meaning over decoration. The same page, served as clean text and structured data, so the meaning comes through without a screen. - **Protocols:** Markdown content negotiation, structured data (JSON-LD). - Markdown content negotiation: a site serves the page as clean text when an agent asks for it, instead of a wall of layout. - Structured data (JSON-LD): Schema.org markup that tells an agent what a page means, not just how it looks. - **Who ships it:** - Cloudflare scores Content as one of its agent-readiness categories, and found only 3.9% of the top 200,000 sites support Markdown negotiation. - The open web already carries JSON-LD widely for search. The same markup is what lets an agent read meaning. This page ships it too. - **Stat:** Only 3.9% of the 200,000 top sites can hand an agent clean Markdown. - **Source:** https://blog.cloudflare.com/agent-readiness/ (Cloudflare Agent Readiness, 2026-04-17) ## Layer 3. Trust (be verified) Trust between strangers comes down to proof you can check, not promises you take on faith. - **Protocols:** signed agent cards (JWS), per-request signatures, mandates (AP2, signed consent). - Signed agent cards (JWS): a passport for an agent. The card is signed so you can verify it was not tampered with. Part of the A2A spec. https://a2a-protocol.org/latest/specification/ - Per-request signatures: a signature on every message, so nobody can forge or alter it in flight. - Mandates (AP2): a signed receipt that proves a human actually consented to an action. https://www.zinc.com/blog/what-is-ap2 - **Who ships it:** - A2A / Linux Foundation defines the signed agent card. At its one-year mark (April 2026) it surpassed 150 organizations and landed in major cloud platforms with production use. - Google AP2 adds mandates: signed proof of user consent that a merchant and a network can each verify independently. - **Stat:** A2A passed 150+ organizations in its first year, with production use. - **Sources:** https://a2a-protocol.org/latest/specification/ · https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/a2a-protocol-surpasses-150-organizations-lands-in-major-cloud-platforms-and-sees-enterprise-production-use-in-first-year ## Layer 4. Execution (be called) The difference between a site an agent can describe and one it can actually use. - **Protocols:** MCP (Model Context Protocol). - MCP: tools an agent can call, not just text it can read. https://modelcontextprotocol.io - **Who ships it:** - Anthropic created MCP. It is now the common way to expose callable tools to an agent. - The MCP ecosystem spans thousands of servers, but on the open web it is still rare. Cloudflare found MCP server cards and machine-readable API catalogs on fewer than 15 sites across the entire top 200,000. - Immersive Commons runs MCP in production today, so a member's agent can call real tools on the floor. - **Stat:** The agent-native call standard shows up on fewer than 15 of 200,000 sites. - **Source:** https://blog.cloudflare.com/agent-readiness/ (Cloudflare Agent Readiness, 2026-04-17) ## Layer 5. Payments + A2A (settle and cooperate) Money is the oldest cooperation technology. It is online now, and agents have their own version. - **Protocols:** x402 (HTTP-402 agent payments), AP2 (mandates), ACP (Stripe + OpenAI instant checkout), A2A (agent-to-agent). - x402: an open standard that uses the old HTTP 402 status code so one agent can pay another in seconds, with no human login. https://www.x402.org/ - AP2: mandates that stack on top of a payment. One signature says you agreed, the other says money moved. https://www.zinc.com/blog/what-is-ap2 - ACP: the Agentic Commerce Protocol. Instant checkout inside ChatGPT. https://stripe.com/newsroom/news/stripe-openai-instant-checkout - A2A: agent to agent. Where your agent and mine cooperate directly. https://a2a-protocol.org/latest/specification/ - **Who ships it:** - x402 Foundation (Coinbase-originated) backs x402, with a member list that reads like the financial system: Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Google, AWS, Microsoft, Circle, American Express, Shopify. As of April 21, 2026 it had moved 165M+ payments, about $50M, across roughly 69,000 active agents (lifetime totals). - Google ships A2A and AP2. - Stripe + OpenAI shipped instant checkout inside ChatGPT via the Agentic Commerce Protocol. - **Stat:** x402: 165M+ payments, ~$50M moved, across 69k agents (lifetime, as of 2026-04-21). - **Sources:** https://www.x402.org/ · https://www.coinbase.com/developer-platform/discover/launches/x402 · https://stripe.com/newsroom/news/stripe-openai-instant-checkout ## Why this matters now (context) - Bots were 53% of all web traffic in 2025, the second straight year automation outnumbered humans. Imperva Bad Bot Report 2026. https://www.imperva.com/blog/bad-bot-report-2026-bots-agentic-age/ - AI web traffic grew about 187% in 2025 while human traffic grew about 3%. HUMAN Security, 2026 State of AI Traffic. https://www.implicator.ai/human-security-reports-ai-traffic-surged-187-in-2025-as-bots-eclipsed-human-users/ - Agents pass humans outright by 2027, per Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince (March 2026). https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/19/online-bot-traffic-will-exceed-human-traffic-by-2027-cloudflare-ceo-says/ ## Honesty note x402's 165M / $50M / 69k figures are lifetime totals, not daily. Current daily volume is small and partly test traffic. The claim here is only that agents already pay each other, and they do. ## Become a Web A citizen You do not need all five layers to start. You need the bottom one. 1. Ship an ai-agent.json at /.well-known/ai-agent.json, so agents can find you. 2. Ship an llms.txt at your root, so they can read you in plain language. 3. When you are ready, add MCP so agents can call you, the way Immersive Commons already does. That is what makes a site a Web A citizen. This page is one. ## Links - This page (HTML): https://weba.network/protocols - Home: https://weba.network - Whitepaper: https://weba.network/whitepaper - Agent manifest: https://weba.network/.well-known/ai-agent.json - Plain-text summary: https://weba.network/llms.txt - Anchor company (Immersive Commons): https://www.immersivecommons.com ## About An Immersive Commons movement. Stewarded by Rayyan Zahid (https://linkedin.com/in/rayyanzahid). Agents are welcome to quote, summarize, and cite with attribution to "Web A, the agentic web movement, weba.network, an Immersive Commons movement."