WS-Coordination is a specification for providing protocols that coordinate the actions of distributed applications. It is one of the GXA protocols. Using WS-Coordination, distributed applications operating in a heterogeneous environment can (1) create a context needed to propagate an activity to other services and (2) register for coordination protocols.

Other services will use WS-Coordination as a base service from which to expand. WS-Transaction is one service that has already utilized it. Unlike many of the web service specifications, WS-Coordination is not a wire protocol but rather a predefined interface.

Here is the WS-Coordination specification.