The Styx Agent Methodology

Abstract Agent-orientedsoftwareengineeringis a promisingnew approach to software engineering that uses thenotion of an agent as the primary entity of abstrac-tion. The developmentof methodologies for agent-oriented software engineeringis an area that is cur-rently receiving much attention, there have beenseveral agent-oriented methodologies proposed re-cently and survey papers are starting to appear.However the authors feel that there is still muchwork necessary in this area; current methodologiescan be improved upon. This paper presents a newmethodology, the Styx Agent Methodology, whichguides the development of collaborative agent sys-tems fromthe analysis phase throughto system im-plementation and maintenance. A distinguishingfeature of Styx is that it covers a wider range ofsoftware development life-cycle activities than doother recently proposed agent-oriented methodol-ogies. The key areas covered by this methodol-ogy are the specic ation of communication con-cepts, inter-agent communication and each agent'sbehaviour activation—but it does not address thedevelopment of application-specic parts of a sys-tem. It will be supported by a software tool whichis currently in development.