> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/agentgateway/agentgateway/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Introduction

> The first complete connectivity solution for Agentic AI — a high-performance proxy for MCP and A2A protocols.

## What is Agentgateway?

Agentgateway is an open source data plane optimized for agentic AI connectivity. It provides drop-in security, observability, and governance for agent-to-agent (A2A) and agent-to-tool (MCP) communication — working within or across any agent framework or environment.

Written in Rust for maximum performance, Agentgateway supports leading interoperable protocols including [Model Context Protocol (MCP)](https://modelcontextprotocol.io/introduction) and [Agent2Agent (A2A)](https://developers.googleblog.com/en/a2a-a-new-era-of-agent-interoperability/).

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Quickstart" icon="rocket" href="/quickstart">
    Get Agentgateway running in minutes with a basic MCP proxy setup
  </Card>

  <Card title="Installation" icon="download" href="/installation">
    Install from source, pre-built binaries, or Docker
  </Card>

  <Card title="MCP Proxy Guide" icon="plug" href="/guides/mcp-proxy">
    Learn how to proxy MCP servers with security and observability
  </Card>

  <Card title="A2A Guide" icon="arrows-left-right" href="/guides/a2a-proxy">
    Set up agent-to-agent communication with the A2A protocol
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Key features

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="MCP & A2A Protocol Support" icon="network-wired">
    First-class support for Model Context Protocol (MCP) and Agent2Agent (A2A) — the leading standards for agentic AI connectivity.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Security First" icon="shield-halved">
    Built-in RBAC, JWT authentication, mTLS, and AI prompt guard to secure every agent interaction.
  </Card>

  <Card title="High Performance" icon="bolt">
    Written in Rust from the ground up — designed to handle any scale with minimal latency overhead.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Dynamic Configuration" icon="sliders">
    Zero-downtime configuration updates via xDS. Local file-watch reloads also supported.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Kubernetes Native" icon="dharmachakra">
    Built-in Kubernetes controller with Gateway API support for cloud-native deployments.
  </Card>

  <Card title="OpenAPI to MCP" icon="code">
    Transform legacy REST APIs into MCP resources automatically using OpenAPI specifications.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Full Observability" icon="chart-line">
    OpenTelemetry tracing, Prometheus metrics, and structured logging out of the box.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Multi-Tenant" icon="users">
    Support multiple tenants each with their own resources, routes, and policies.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## How it works

Agentgateway sits between AI agents and their tools or other agents, acting as a transparent proxy that adds security, observability, and governance to every interaction.

```
AI Agent → Agentgateway → MCP Server (tools, resources, prompts)
                       → A2A Agent (agent-to-agent tasks)
                       → HTTP/REST API (via OpenAPI transformation)
```

The gateway is configured through a declarative YAML/JSON configuration that defines:

* **Binds** — ports the gateway listens on
* **Listeners** — virtual hosts and protocols per port
* **Routes** — traffic routing rules and matching criteria
* **Backends** — upstream MCP servers, A2A agents, or HTTP services
* **Policies** — authentication, authorization, rate limiting, and traffic shaping

## Protocol support

| Protocol | Description                            | Transport                                     |
| -------- | -------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------- |
| MCP      | Model Context Protocol for AI tools    | SSE (`/sse`), Streamable HTTP (`/mcp`), Stdio |
| A2A      | Agent2Agent for agent interoperability | HTTP                                          |
| HTTP     | Generic HTTP/HTTPS traffic             | HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2                              |

## Community

Agentgateway is a [Linux Foundation](https://www.linuxfoundation.org/) project.

* [GitHub](https://github.com/agentgateway/agentgateway) — Source code, issues, and pull requests
* [Discord](https://discord.gg/BdJpzaPjHv) — Community discussions and support
* [Community Calendar](https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0?cid=Y18zZTAzNGE0OTFiMGUyYzU2OWI1Y2ZlOWNmOWM4NjYyZTljNTNjYzVlOTdmMjdkY2I5ZTZmNmM5ZDZhYzRkM2ZmQGdyb3VwLmNhbGVuZGFyLmdvb2dsZS5jb20) — Weekly community meetings