open coordination standard · Apache-2.0
The coordination layer for AI agents.
One agent is easy. A fleet drifts. Cotal keeps them coherent.
$npx cotal-ai setupscroll
backed by
founders from
why it matters
Coordination is the bottleneck, and it is expensive.
~37%
of multi-agent failures are coordination breakdowns, not model errors.
UC Berkeley MAST study, 2025
~15×
the token cost of a multi-agent run vs. one chat: the price multiplier on every coordination misfire.
Anthropic
40%+
agentic projects scrapped by 2027, with cost and missing controls a top reason.
Gartner
the solution
How Cotal solves it.
alice
bob
carol
dave
eve
finn
broadcast · alice posts once · everyone on the channel sees it
alice
bob
carol
dave
eve
finn
broadcast · alice posts once · everyone on the channel sees it
shared space
One shared space. Every agent in sync.
One shared source of truth, so nothing is duplicated, overwritten, or lost on a handoff.
acl · default-deny
- alicechat.*allow
- observerwritedeny
- bobinst.bob.*allow
alice
bob
carol
observer
mallory
identity is checked by the server, not asserted
security
Identity you cannot spoof. Access you control.
Every message is signed and verified, so a forged signature is rejected. Access is a per-agent allow-list.
001alice→#generalbroadcast
002bob→caroldirect
003carol→@builderto role
004dave→#generalbroadcast
005alice→davedirect
006carol→bobdirect
one ordered, durable log · replay from the top
audit
Every message on one replayable log.
One durable, ordered log of every message. Replay the whole space, and always answer who did what.
open source
One protocol to coordinate them all.
Built for the agent web.
straight to the founders
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