# poppy.md

> Independent tracker for the Personal Agent Protocol (Poppy). Not affiliated with Sierra, Meta or any partner.

Poppy is the short name for Personal Agent Protocol, formerly referred to as PAP. PAP was the initialism used when the protocol was first announced; Poppy is the current name, chosen to avoid confusion with other protocols using PAP. Search phrase: "Poppy, formerly known as PAP." poppy.md is an independent tracker for the open standard Sierra and Meta announced on October 6, 2026 for how personal AI agents sign in to businesses and act for customers. Sessions run on OAuth; the customer chooses read-only or write access; the business chooses the route (website, APIs such as MCP and OpenAPI, or its own agent). Draft 0.1 was published on October 9, 2026 under Apache 2.0 and may change before a stable release. Each page lists its sources; primary sources include https://sierra.ai/blog/poppy and https://personalagentprotocol.org/docs/spec. poppy.md is not affiliated with Sierra, Meta or any partner. Checked 2026-10-10.

## Start here

- [What is the Personal Agent Protocol?](https://poppy.md/docs/overview.md): Definition, how a visit works, who is behind it, what is missing.
- [Spec status tracker](https://poppy.md/status.md): Draft 0.1 status, design workshops and the reference implementation.
- [Timeline](https://poppy.md/timeline.md): Dated events from ACP and UCP to Muse, Amazon and Poppy draft 0.1.
- [FAQ](https://poppy.md/faq.md): Short sourced answers about Poppy, formerly known as PAP, including why the name changed.

## How it works

- [Architecture](https://poppy.md/docs/architecture.md): Discovery, guest and signed-in sessions, OAuth access, routes.
- [Glossary](https://poppy.md/docs/glossary.md): Poppy terms plus related protocols.
- [For businesses](https://poppy.md/for-businesses.md): Preparation checklist using only announced facts.

## Comparisons

- [Agent protocol map](https://poppy.md/compare.md): Poppy next to MCP, A2A, UCP, ACP, TAP and PACT.
- [Poppy vs MCP: does the Personal Agent Protocol replace MCP?](https://poppy.md/compare/pap-vs-mcp.md): No. MCP is one of the API routes Poppy names. Poppy covers who the agent acts for and what the customer allowed; MCP carries the calls.
- [Poppy vs A2A: Personal Agent Protocol and Agent2Agent](https://poppy.md/compare/pap-vs-a2a.md): A2A defines how two agents exchange tasks. Poppy defines whether a personal agent may act for a customer at a business, and how far.
- [Poppy vs UCP: Personal Agent Protocol vs Google’s UCP](https://poppy.md/compare/pap-vs-ucp.md): UCP covers shopping from discovery to checkout. Poppy covers agent sign-in and customer consent across any industry. Shopify backs both.
- [Poppy vs ACP: Personal Agent Protocol vs OpenAI’s ACP](https://poppy.md/compare/pap-vs-acp.md): ACP handles checkout with shared payment tokens. Poppy handles agent sign-in and consent. Stripe backs both; OpenAI joined Poppy as a design partner.
- [Poppy vs TAP: Personal Agent Protocol vs Visa’s TAP](https://poppy.md/compare/pap-vs-tap.md): Both help a business tell real customer agents from bots. TAP signs each HTTP request; Poppy uses an OAuth session the customer approves.
- [Poppy vs PACT: Personal Agent Protocol and Decagon’s PACT](https://poppy.md/compare/pap-vs-pact.md): PACT and Poppy launched the same day to solve the same problem. Both now have public specifications: PACT uses A2A and OAuth 2.0; Poppy’s draft 0.1 uses OAuth and related web standards.

## Ecosystem

- [Partners](https://poppy.md/ecosystem/partners.md): Sierra and Meta partner lists compared.
- [Press coverage](https://poppy.md/press.md): Coverage and analysis worth reading.
- [About poppy.md](https://poppy.md/about.md): Independence and sourcing rules.
- [Contribute](https://poppy.md/contribute.md): How to send corrections, sources and spec alerts.