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.agents Protocol Support Matrix

This page states exactly which parts of the .agents Protocol QueryMT Agent supports. Anything listed as unsupported is detected and diagnosed rather than silently ignored, so the extent of support is always inspectable.

Top-Level Protocol Entries

Entry Status Notes
agents.md Supported Instructions appended after explicit system parts; frontmatter excluded
system-prompt.md Supported Appended after explicit parts and before agents.md
mcp.json Supported stdio and streamable-http transports only
models.json Supported Model presets as LLM overlays; does not install providers
skills/ Supported skill.md and SKILL.md; existing sources preserved
agents/ Supported Internal delegation-target profiles; extends delegation registries
tasks/ Supported Reconciles to durable recurring tasks and interval schedules, subject to trust
memories/ Supported Idempotent import into the configured knowledge store
speakmcp-settings.json Not supported Detected and reported; never interpreted
layouts/ Not supported Layout preferences are out of scope; detected and reported
.backups/ Not supported Backup rotation is out of scope; detected and reported
any other top-level entry Not supported Reported as an unknown protocol artifact

MCP Transports

Transport Status Behavior
stdio Supported Started through QueryMT's existing process-based MCP transport
streamable-http Supported Connected through QueryMT's existing RMCP streamable HTTP transport
websocket Not supported Never started; a diagnostic identifies WebSocket as unrepresentable
unknown/future transport Not supported Never started; a diagnostic names the server and transport

Transport spellings are matched case-insensitively, and _/- variations are accepted:

Accepted spelling Resolves to
stdio stdio
streamable-http, streamablehttp, http streamable-http
websocket, ws, wss websocket (unsupported)
anything else unknown (unsupported), diagnosed with the raw spelling

Transport inference applies only when transport is omitted and the structural fields are unambiguous:

Fields present Inferred
command only stdio
url only streamable-http
both command and url Error: requires an unambiguous supported transport
neither Error: no supported transport can be determined

Note that querymt's TOML configuration spells the HTTP transport http (its [[mcp]] discriminator), while the protocol document accepts streamable-http; the adapter translates between them.

Sub-Agent Connection Types

Connection Status Behavior
internal Supported Materialized lazily as a local delegation target
stdio / executable Not supported Never launched; retained with an unsupported-connection diagnostic
unknown connection type Not supported Never launched; diagnosed with the profile and connection type

MCP transport support for a sub-agent is a separate concern from the sub-agent's own ACP or executable connection type.

Out of Scope

The following are intentionally not implemented:

  • Hub operations — publishing and installing .agents bundles.
  • Write-back — QueryMT never rewrites protocol files.
  • Bundle creation — no .agents bundle assembly.
  • Backup rotation — .backups/ is not managed.
  • speakmcp-settings.json — not interpreted.
  • layouts/ — layout preferences are not interpreted.
  • External sub-agent execution — arbitrary executables are not launched, because the crate has no sandboxed client-side ACP process lifecycle.

Preserved Behavior

Enabling protocol support does not change existing behavior:

  • current TOML loaders and programmatic builders work unchanged;
  • existing skill sources (.skills, .claude/skills, .qmt/skills, configured paths) keep working;
  • profile catalogs and session bindings are unaffected;
  • session model switching and remote system prompts retain the composed prompt.

When protocol loading is disabled, or no protocol directory exists, no .agents directory is ever created.