The Styx agent methodology

Abstract

Agent-oriented software engineering is a promising new approach to software engineering that uses the notion of an agent as the primary entity of abstraction. The development of methodologies for agent-oriented software engineering is an area that is currently receiving much attention, there have been several agent-oriented methodologies proposed recently and survey papers are starting to appear. However the authors feel that there is still much work necessary in this area; current methodologies can be improved upon. This paper presents a new methodology, the Styx Agent Methodology, which guides the development of collaborative agent systems from the analysis phase through to system implementation and maintenance. A distinguishing feature of Styx is that it covers a wider range of software development life-cycle activities than do other recently proposed agent-oriented methodologies. The key areas covered by this methodology are the specification of communication concepts, inter-agent communication and each agent's behaviour activation---but it does not address the development of application-specific parts of a system. It will be supported by a software tool which is currently in development.