Conversion of subscription predicates for transmission in a publish-subscribe network. Subscriptions include Boolean-valued predicates defining content desired by a subscriber. An agent application converts the predicates into a suitable form for transmission to routers in a network core. The routers process the predicates into filter tables or data structures for use in content-based routing, which involves applying attributes in received packets to the filters. The agent also receives content corresponding with subscriptions and calls applications for presenting the content to a subscriber.