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Abstract. As agents gain acceptance as a technology there is a growing need for practical methods for developing agent applications. This paper presents the Prometheus methodology, which has been developed over several years in collaboration with Agent Oriented Software. The methodology has been taught at industry workshops and university courses. It has proven effective in assisting developers to design, document, and build agent systems. Prometheus differs from existing methodologies in that it is a detailed and complete (start to end) methodology for developing intelligent agents which has evolved out of industrial and pedagogical experience. This paper describes the process and the products of the methodology illustrated by a running example.

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Agent interaction protocols are usually specified in terms of permissible sequences of messages. This representation is, unfortunately, brittle and does not allow for flexibility and robustness. The commitment machines framework of Yolum and Singh aims to provide more flexibility and robustness by defining interactions in terms of the commitments of agents. In this paper we identify a number of areas where the commitment machines framework needs improvement and propose an improved version. In particular we improve the way in which commitments are discharged and the way in which pre-conditions are specified.