Poppy 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 Poppy was announced without a specification. Then it joined the Poppy working group.
| Poppy | PACT | |
|---|---|---|
| Announced | Oct 6, 2026 | Oct 6, 2026 |
| Created by | Sierra and Meta | Decagon and Instinct |
| Spec status | Draft 0.1, Apache 2.0 | 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 Poppy’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 Poppy
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 Poppy partner, and Decagon credits it as PACT’s co-developer.
Decagon says it joined the Poppy working group "to help shape an industry standard". Our read: PACT is the most concrete public input Poppy has right now. Whether v0.1 absorbs it, borrows from it or ignores it will say a lot about how open the Poppy process really is.
Quick answers
Is PACT the same as Poppy?
No. They’re separate protocols announced on the same day. Decagon, which built PACT, says it has joined the Poppy 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 Poppy launch partner and Decagon credits it as PACT’s co-developer.
Other comparisons
- All agent protocols in one table
- Poppy vs MCP (Model Context Protocol)
- Poppy vs A2A (Agent2Agent)
- Poppy vs UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol)
- Poppy vs ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol)
- Poppy 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
- Personal Agent Protocol specification (Draft 0.1) · Personal Agent Protocol, Oct 9, 2026 · primary source
poppy.md is independent and not affiliated with Sierra, Meta or any Poppy partner. Facts here come from the sources listed on each page.