Q: a scenario description language for interactive agents

Agent internal mechanisms form the basis for many of the languages proposed for describing agent behavior and interagent protocols. For the Web, however, we should also consider the needs of application designers such as sales managers, travel agents, and schoolteachers. To this end, the author is developing Q, a language for describing interaction scenarios between agents and users based on agent external roles. Q also provides an interface between computing professionals and scenario writers. Rather than depending on agent internal mechanisms, Q seeks to describe how scenario writers should request that agents behave. Scenarios help establish a bridge between the computing professionals who design agents and the scenario writers who design applications. Thus, we can expect an effective dialog to emerge from the interplay between the two different perspectives during the process of formalizing interaction patterns.