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Comment by _pdp_ | Hacker News Reader

Link to repo: https://github.com/google/A2A Docs: https://google.github.io/A2A/#/documentation

I think they are trying to ride the MCP hype as well with their own implementation that is also meh. MCP itself is also an over-engineered implementation of AI plugins by OpenAI. Obviously the end game is control over a standard which can act as a strategic tool for boosting valuations or even better product positioning.

The better approach is to simply use open standards that already exists but I guess this is just not sexy.

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The google angle here isn't even so much on the LLM side but on Google Cloud

See all those shiny badges for consulting firms? If you are a truely thought leadershiping executive, you should get one of them in ASAP to build you an A2A Registry [1] for your "Enterprise Agents" [2] to communicate via an A2A NotificationService [3] (brought to you by GCP!)

Indicative that the blog post example isn't help book a holiday but help hire a software engineer

1: https://google.github.io/A2A/#/topics/agent_discovery

2: https://google.github.io/A2A/#/topics/enterprise_ready

3: https://google.github.io/A2A/#/topics/push_notifications

edit:

> Updates to Agentspace make it easier for customers to discover, create and adopt AI agents. We're also growing the AI Agent Marketplace https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/browse?filter=c... , a dedicated section within Google Cloud Marketplace where customers can easily browse and purchase AI agents from partners.

https://blog.google/products/google-cloud/next-2025/

MCP was originated at Anthropic, and has been adopted by OpenAI, Github, Cloudflare, and more.

It's completely open, with active engagement and direction from the community:

https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/modelcontextprotocol

I don't think it would have such wide adoption so rapidly if it were an "over-engineered implementation".

> MCP itself is also an over-engineered implementation of AI plugins by OpenAI

I'm confused by this comment and a reply that both seem to be under this assumption... first, it's from Anthropic, and second, it's hardly over-engineered. If you actually go and try and implement a specific MCP server's functionality from first principles into, say, some chat client of your choosing, you will quickly run into the problems that MCP addresses.

Marginally technical executives are really dangerous here. My CTO is "all in" on MCP but fails to see it's an over-engineered attempt by one player to own the thin veneer on top of the bog-standard plumbing that's actually doing all the work. It's like OpenAI made an ODBC database connector and is saying "we created relational databases!"

I think the only reason people think MCP is over-engineered is that people have been waiting for a way to expose remote tool calls in a client application, MCP came along and had that (among other things), and people assumed that that was all it was good for. But it's not! It's like saying a microwave is over-engineered because you only use the timer functionality.

"The better approach is to simply use open standards that already exists"

Which ones?

OpenAPI/swagger

No support for long, streaming interactions, like a terminal

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