What is A2UI?

What is A2UI?

A2UI (Agent to UI) is a declarative UI protocol for agent-driven interfaces. AI agents generate rich, interactive UIs that render natively across platforms (web, mobile, desktop) without executing arbitrary code.

The Problem

Text-only agent interactions are inefficient:

User: "Book a table for 2 tomorrow at 7pm"
Agent: "Okay, for what day?"
User: "Tomorrow"
Agent: "What time?"
...

Better: Agent generates a form with date picker, time selector, and submit button. Users interact with UI, not text.

The Challenge

In multi-agent systems, agents often run remotely (different servers, organizations). They can’t directly manipulate your UI—they must send messages.

Traditional approach: Send HTML/JavaScript in iframes

• Heavy, visually disjointed
• Security complexity
• Doesn’t match app styling

Need: Transmit UI that’s safe like data, expressive like code.

The Solution

A2UI: JSON messages describing UI that:

• LLMs generate as structured output
• Travel over any transport (A2A, AG UI, SSE, WebSockets)
• Client renders using its own native components

Result: Client controls security and styling, agent-generated UI feels native.

Example

=== “v0.8 (Stable)”

```jsonl
{
  "surfaceUpdate": {
    "surfaceId": "booking",
    "components": [
      {
        "id": "title",
        "component": {
          "Text": {
            "text": { "literalString": "Book Your Table" },
            "usageHint": "h1"
          }
        }
      },
      {
        "id": "datetime",
        "component": {
          "DateTimeInput": {
            "value": { "path": "/booking/date" },
            "enableDate": true
          }
        }
      },
      {
        "id": "submit-text",
        "component": {
          "Text": {
            "text": { "literalString": "Confirm" }
          }
        }
      },
      {
        "id": "submit-btn",
        "component": {
          "Button": {
            "child": "submit-text",
            "action": { "name": "confirm_booking" }
          }
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}
{
  "dataModelUpdate": {
    "surfaceId": "booking",
    "contents": [
      {
        "key": "booking",
        "valueMap": [
          { "key": "date", "valueString": "2025-12-16T19:00:00Z" }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}
{
  "beginRendering": {
    "surfaceId": "booking",
    "root": "title"
  }
}
```

=== “v0.9 (Draft)”

```jsonl
{
  "version": "v0.9",
  "createSurface": {
    "surfaceId": "booking",
    "catalogId": "https://a2ui.org/specification/v0_9/basic_catalog.json"
  }
}
{
  "version": "v0.9",
  "updateComponents": {
    "surfaceId": "booking",
    "components": [
      {
        "id": "title",
        "component": "Text",
        "text": "Book Your Table",
        "variant": "h1"
      },
      {
        "id": "datetime",
        "component": "DateTimeInput",
        "value": { "path": "/booking/date" },
        "enableDate": true
      },
      {
        "id": "submit-text",
        "component": "Text",
        "text": "Confirm"
      },
      {
        "id": "submit-btn",
        "component": "Button",
        "child": "submit-text",
        "variant": "primary",
        "action": {
          "event": { "name": "confirm_booking" }
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}
{
  "version": "v0.9",
  "updateDataModel": {
    "surfaceId": "booking",
    "path": "/booking",
    "value": {
      "date": "2025-12-16T19:00:00Z"
    }
  }
}
```

Key differences in v0.9: `createSurface` replaces `beginRendering`, components use a flatter structure with `"component": "Text"` instead of nested objects, and all messages include a `version` field.

Client renders these messages as native components (Angular, Flutter, React, etc.).

Core Value

1. Security: Declarative data, not code. Agent requests components from client’s trusted catalog. No code execution risk.

2. Native Feel: No iframes. Client renders with its own UI framework. Inherits app styling, accessibility, performance.

3. Portability: One agent response works everywhere. Same JSON renders on web (Lit/Angular/React), mobile (Flutter/SwiftUI/Jetpack Compose), desktop.

Design Principles

1. LLM-Friendly: Flat component list with ID references. Easy to generate incrementally, correct mistakes, stream.

2. Framework-Agnostic: Agent sends abstract component tree. Client maps to native widgets (web/mobile/desktop).

3. Separation of Concerns: Three layers—UI structure, application state, client rendering. Enables data binding, reactive updates, clean architecture.

What A2UI Is NOT

• Not a framework (it’s a protocol)
• Not a replacement for HTML (for agent-generated UIs, not static sites)
• Not a robust styling system (client controls styling with limited serverside styling support)
• Not limited to web (works on mobile and desktop)

Key Concepts

• Surface: Canvas for components (dialog, sidebar, main view)
• Component: UI element (Button, TextField, Card, etc.)
• Data Model: Application state, components bind to it
• Catalog: Available component types
• Message: JSON object (surfaceUpdate, dataModelUpdate, beginRendering, etc.)

For a comparison of similar projects, see Agent UI Ecosystem.