Vision Statement
“The protocol is public. The infrastructure is public. The agent remains the resident's.”
The Massachusetts initiative proposes a governed, open infrastructure layer that allows any compliant AI agent to interact with civic services securely and through standardized interfaces.
The government provides the infrastructure and rules, rather than operating a single agent for every resident.
Why Boston & Massachusetts
Existing Civic Infrastructure
Boston already has an open public MCP server, while Boston Home and other identity infrastructure are being developed.
Open by Design
The proposed architecture is designed so residents can change AI providers without losing access to their civic services or delegated permissions.
Civic + Research Ecosystem
The RFC was developed collaboratively across the City of Boston, MIT Media Lab, MassTech AI Hub, Foundation for Agentic Networks and Massachusetts civic technology community.
The Agentic City in Practice
Priority Civic Services
The proposal focuses on existing government services that are difficult to navigate today, including:
Permits & Business Services
Helping residents navigate permits, licenses and applications.
Benefits & Public Services
Making benefits, program enrollment and service information easier to discover.
Housing & Community Services
Supporting access to housing services and other civic resources.
Municipal Services
Providing an agentic interface to services such as 311 and public information.
A Resident Journey
Maria's Food Truck
The RFC uses Maria, a Portuguese-speaking mother in East Boston, as a motivating example. Her agent helps discover the information and steps required to open a food truck, interacting with Boston's civic data infrastructure rather than requiring her to navigate multiple departments herself.
The important point is not the specific food-truck workflow. It demonstrates the proposed model: the resident interacts with an agent, while the agent navigates the complexity of government systems.
Foundations
Open Civic Interfaces
Boston's Open Context MCP provides a governed interface to municipal data and services. The RFC proposes MCP as the interface through which agents can interact with government systems without requiring the government to operate the resident's agent.
Identity & Delegation
Boston Home and my.mass.gov are proposed as foundations for authenticated, delegated access between residents, agents and government services. The exact identity model remains an open design question.
Open Agent Ecosystem
The proposed ecosystem distinguishes government agents, institutional agents, resident agents and an unregulated innovation layer, with government governing the civic layers while leaving room for private innovation.
Working Groups
The RFC proposes four working groups covering identity, civic interfaces, equity/privacy, and governance. These groups are intended to develop the infrastructure and policy questions over the following twelve months.