What Is an Agent Registry — and Does Discovery Need One?
An agent registry is a directory that lists agents or organisations and where to find them. It is useful for search and reputation, but agent discovery should not depend on a single central registry: an agent that has a domain can fetch a well-known document directly, keeping the agentic web open and decentralised. Registries are best treated as indexes over a discovery mechanism that works without them.
Index, don’t gatekeep
A registry that becomes the only way to be discovered is a gatekeeper. The healthier pattern mirrors the web itself: discovery works from a domain and a well-known path, and registries are optional indexes on top — the way search engines index sites that are reachable with or without them.
Questions
Do agents need a central registry to find each other?
No. A well-known document at a domain lets an agent be discovered directly. Registries add search and reputation but should not be the sole path.
Is a registry the same as discovery?
No. Discovery is how an agent learns what a specific organisation offers; a registry is a searchable list of many. Keep the two distinct.
Where this lives in the estate
FlashyOS directory — a consent-gated index over a domain-native discovery layer
Keep reading
By Michael Gord · published 2026-09-29 · part of the Agentic Encyclopedia. Dates are the day of publication; events are cited at their own dates.