Connect to an agent

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Route to A2A servers and securely expose their skills through agentgateway.

With agentgateway, you can route to agent-to-agent (A2A) servers and expose their tools securely.

Before you begin

Install and set up an agentgateway proxy.

Step 1: Set up routing to an A2A server

Deploy an A2A server, then create the resources that route traffic to it. You can route through an AgentgatewayBackend resource, or directly to the Service that exposes the server.

For most cases, use the AgentgatewayBackend approach. The a2a backend type represents the A2A server as a dedicated backend that you can further configure, such as by attaching policies, and it can select A2A servers that run outside your cluster. The Service-based approach requires an update to your app (the appProtocol setting) and is the legacy way from an earlier version of agentgateway.

Because the backend’s a2a type signals the A2A protocol, the Service does not need the appProtocol setting.

Deploy the A2A server with a Deployment and a Service.

kubectl apply -f- <<EOF
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: a2a-agent
  labels:
    app: a2a-agent
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: a2a-agent
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: a2a-agent
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: a2a-agent
          image: gcr.io/solo-public/docs/test-a2a-agent:latest
          ports:
            - containerPort: 9090
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: a2a-agent
spec:
  selector:
    app: a2a-agent
  type: ClusterIP
  ports:
    - protocol: TCP
      port: 9090
      targetPort: 9090
EOF

Create an AgentgatewayBackend resource that defines the A2A server as a backend. The a2a type configures agentgateway to use the A2A protocol when it connects to the host and port that you specify.

kubectl apply -f- <<EOF
apiVersion: agentgateway.dev/v1alpha1
kind: AgentgatewayBackend
metadata:
  name: a2a-backend
spec:
  a2a:
    host: a2a-agent.default.svc.cluster.local
    port: 9090
EOF

Create an HTTPRoute that routes traffic along the /myagent prefix path to the AgentgatewayBackend. The prefix path exposes the A2A server under a unique address on the gateway. However, because the A2A server requires traffic to be sent along the root path (/), you add a URLRewrite filter to the HTTPRoute that rewrites the /myagent prefix to /.

kubectl apply -f- <<EOF
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: HTTPRoute
metadata:
  name: a2a
spec:
  parentRefs:
  - name: agentgateway-proxy
    namespace: agentgateway-system
  rules:
  - matches:
    - path:
        type: PathPrefix
        value: /myagent
    filters:
    - type: URLRewrite
      urlRewrite:
        path:
          type: ReplacePrefixMatch
          replacePrefixMatch: /
    backendRefs:
      - name: a2a-backend
        group: agentgateway.dev
        kind: AgentgatewayBackend
EOF

Deploy the A2A server with a Deployment and a Service. Notice that the Service uses the appProtocol: kgateway.dev/a2a setting.

kubectl apply -f- <<EOF
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: a2a-agent
  labels:
    app: a2a-agent
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: a2a-agent
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: a2a-agent
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: a2a-agent
          image: gcr.io/solo-public/docs/test-a2a-agent:latest
          ports:
            - containerPort: 9090
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: a2a-agent
spec:
  selector:
    app: a2a-agent
  type: ClusterIP
  ports:
    - protocol: TCP
      port: 9090
      targetPort: 9090
      appProtocol: kgateway.dev/a2a
EOF

Create an HTTPRoute that routes traffic along the /myagent prefix path directly to the Service that exposes your agent. Note that this configuration requires the appProtocol: kgateway.dev/a2a setting on the Service, which configures agentgateway to use the A2A protocol when connecting to the Service. The /myagent prefix path exposes the A2A server under a unique address on the gateway. However, because the A2A server requires traffic to be sent along the root path (/), you add a URLRewrite filter to the HTTPRoute that rewrites the /myagent prefix to /.

kubectl apply -f- <<EOF
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: HTTPRoute
metadata:
  name: a2a
spec:
  parentRefs:
  - name: agentgateway-proxy
    namespace: agentgateway-system
  rules:
  - matches:
    - path:
        type: PathPrefix
        value: /myagent
    filters:
    - type: URLRewrite
      urlRewrite:
        path:
          type: ReplacePrefixMatch
          replacePrefixMatch: /
    backendRefs:
      - name: a2a-agent
        port: 9090
EOF

Step 2: Verify the connection

Get the agentgateway address.

export INGRESS_GW_ADDRESS=$(kubectl get gateway agentgateway-proxy -n agentgateway-system -o=jsonpath="{.status.addresses[0].value}")
echo $INGRESS_GW_ADDRESS

As a user, send a request to the A2A server. As an assistant, the agent echoes back the message that you sent.

curl -X POST http://$INGRESS_GW_ADDRESS/myagent \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -v \
    -d '{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": "1",
  "method": "tasks/send",
  "params": {
    "id": "1",
    "message": {
      "role": "user",
      "parts": [
        {
          "type": "text",
          "text": "hello gateway!"
        }
      ]
    }
  }
  }' | jq

curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/myagent \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -v \
    -d '{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": "1",
  "method": "tasks/send",
  "params": {
    "id": "1",
    "message": {
      "role": "user",
      "parts": [
        {
          "type": "text",
          "text": "hello gateway!"
        }
      ]
    }
  }
  }' | jq

Example output:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": "1",
  "result": {
    "id": "1",
    "message": {
      "role": "assistant",
      "parts": [
        {
          "type": "text",
          "text": "hello gateway!"
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Cleanup

You can remove the resources that you created in this guide.

kubectl delete Deployment a2a-agent --ignore-not-found
kubectl delete Service a2a-agent --ignore-not-found
kubectl delete HTTPRoute a2a --ignore-not-found
kubectl delete AgentgatewayBackend a2a-backend --ignore-not-found

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Connect to an agent

Before you begin

Step 1: Set up routing to an A2A server

Step 2: Verify the connection

Cleanup

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