[Agentproto] Re: Context definition in AgentProto

[Arashmid Akhavain <[e-mail]>]

Hi Mirja and Suresh, 

Thank you for your feedback. I agree with postponing the terminology discussion to a later time once the WG is established. However, we still need to provide some minimum text to say what we mean by agentic dialog and dialog context in the revised charter.

I suggested a couple of tweaks against PR #82.

Arashmid


-----Original Message-----
From: Suresh Krishnan <[e-mail]> 
Sent: 31 August 2026 23:30
To: Mirja Kuehlewind <[e-mail]>
Cc: Arashmid Akhavain <[e-mail]>; [e-mail]; agentproto-chairs <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: [Agentproto] Context definition in AgentProto

Hi Mirja,
  Yes. My understanding after the BoF was narrowing down to something like this as well. Since both “context” and “session” are both overloaded with other meanings, I was thinking something along the lines of “correlation identifiers” combined with “agentic dialog management” (as suggested by Jonathan) might be used to clarify this. Agree that the terminology can be nailed down later in a working group as long as we manage to get a shared sense of scope from the charter text.

Thanks
Suresh

> On Aug 31, 2026, at 4:09 PM, Mirja Kuehlewind <ietf=[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Hi Arashmid,
> 
> Thanks for starting this discussion. While I think your definition below matches what „context“ usually means when looking at one agent, I was assuming that in the context of session management between agents we talk about something much narrower, like information needed to maintain session state and trigger actions belonging to the same request but not necessarily all the context an agent holds; specific information that is needed to execute a specific task seems also task-specific and might not be generalizable to standardize in a session management protocol. I realize that many terms I just used are also overload. I hope my point is still understandable. However my conclusion is that we probably need to take the terminology discussion to the working group and might not be able to define all things already in the charter.
> 
> Mirja
> 
> 
>> Am 31.08.2026 um 20:14 schrieb Arashmid Akhavain <arashmid.akhavain=[e-mail]>:
>> 
>> Hi everyone,
>> 
>> During the BoF meeting in Vienna, the community identified context management and propagation as one of the important work items for the potential WG.
>> 
>> The charter uses the term "context" in several places. Given that the term can mean different things to different people, it may be helpful to include a brief definition of it in agentproto charter. Here is a proposal to start the discussion with the hope to reach consensus on whether and how such a definition should be included. I understand that the reference to tools in the proposed definition can raise concerns around exposing organisations' internal operations.  But I hope that such concerns can be translated to requirements for discussion once the WG is established.
>> 
>> Suggested text:
>> 
>> "Context refers to an agent's working knowledge of the interactions relevant to a specific task. This relevant information includes user input, conversation history, agent state, and information associated with tools that an agent uses to interpret requests, make decisions, and execute actions for a specific task."
>> 
>> Looking forward to your feedback,
>> Arashmid
>> 
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