PAP vs PACT: Personal Agent Protocol and Decagon’s PACT
Same day, same problem, one spec. Decagon open-sourced PACT on October 6, 2026, the morning PAP was announced without a specification. Then it joined the PAP working group.
| PAP | PACT | |
|---|---|---|
| Announced | Oct 6, 2026 | Oct 6, 2026 |
| Created by | Sierra and Meta | Decagon and Instinct |
| Spec status | Not published | Public spec and repository |
| Built on | OAuth | A2A and OAuth 2.0 |
| Parties named | Customer, personal agent, company | Personal agent, business, agent host platform |
| First public | Oct 6, 2026 | Oct 6, 2026 |
What PACT does
PACT "separates the identity of the personal agent from its authority to act on a customer's account," in Decagon’s words. A business can check which agent is calling and, separately, what the customer authorised it to do.
It’s built on A2A for the conversation and OAuth 2.0 for authorisation, and it names a third party PAP’s announcement doesn’t: the platform that hosts the business’s agent, such as Decagon itself. The spec lives at openpactprotocol.org.
How it relates to PAP
The overlap is close to total on intent. Both want a customer-approved, verifiable agent at the business’s front door. Instinct shows up on both sides: Sierra names it as a PAP partner, and Decagon credits it as PACT’s co-developer.
Decagon says it joined the PAP working group "to help shape an industry standard". Our read: PACT is the most concrete public input PAP has right now. Whether v0.1 absorbs it, borrows from it or ignores it will say a lot about how open the PAP process really is.
Quick answers
Is PACT the same as PAP?
No. They’re separate protocols announced on the same day. Decagon, which built PACT, says it has joined the PAP working group.
Is PACT’s spec public?
Yes. Decagon links a spec at openpactprotocol.org and a GitHub repository.
Who is Instinct?
A personal agent company. Sierra names it as a PAP launch partner and Decagon credits it as PACT’s co-developer.
Other comparisons
- All agent protocols in one table
- PAP vs MCP (Model Context Protocol)
- PAP vs A2A (Agent2Agent)
- PAP vs UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol)
- PAP vs ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol)
- PAP vs TAP (Trusted Agent Protocol)
Sources
- Introducing the Personal Agent Consent & Trust Protocol (PACT) · Decagon, Oct 6, 2026 · primary source
- PACT specification · openpactprotocol.org · primary source
- Introducing Personal Agent Protocol · Sierra (Bret Taylor, Clay Bavor), Oct 6, 2026 · primary source
- Genesys, NiCE Join Sierra, Meta on Open Standard for Personal AI Agents · CMSWire
pap.md is independent and not affiliated with Sierra, Meta or any PAP partner. Facts here come from the sources listed on each page.