Desiderata for Agent Communication Languages

This paper offers some opinions on the desirable features of languages and protocols for communication among intelligent information agents. These desiderata are divided into seven categories: form, content, semantics, implementation, networking, environment, and reliability. The Knowledge Query and Manipulation Language (KQML), is a new language and protocol for exchanging information and knowledge. This work is part of a larger effort, the ARPA Knowledge Sharing Effort, which is aimed at developing techniques and methodologies for building large-scale knowledge bases which are sharable and reusable. KQML is both a message format and a message-handling protocol to support run-time knowledge sharing among agents. KQML is described and evaluated as an agent communication language relative to the desiderata.

This work was supported in part by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under contract F49620-92-J-0174, and the Advanced Research Projects Agency monitored under USAF contracts F30602-93-C-0177 and F30602-93-C-0028 by Rome Laboratory.

To appear in the Proceedings of the AAAI Symposium on Information Gathering from Heterogeneous, Distributed Environments, AAAI-95 Spring Symposium, Stanford University, Stanford, CA. March 27-29, 1995.