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Message routing

Message routing can be split up into the routing of incoming and outgoing Messages.

It is important to keep in mind that interaction protocols can be maintained between agents (agent to agent) and between components of the AEA (component to component). In the former case, the to/sender fields of the Envelope are agent addresses which must follow the address standard of agents, in the latter case they are component public ids. Crucially, both addresses must reference the same type: agent or component.

Incoming Messages

  • Connections receive or create Envelopes which they deposit in the InBox
  • for agent-to-agent communication only, the Multiplexer keeps track of the connection_id via which the Envelope was received.
  • the AgentLoop picks Envelopes off the InBox
  • the AEA tries to decode the message; errors are handled by the ErrorHandler

  • Messages are dispatched based on two rules:

    1. checks if to field can be interpreted as skill_id, if so uses that together with the protocol_id to dispatch to the protocol's Handler in the specified Skill, else
    2. uses the protocol_id to dispatch to the protocol's Handler in all skills supporting the protocol.

Note

For agent-to-agent communication it is advisable to have a single skill implement a given protocol. Skills can then forward the messages via skill-to-skill communication to other skills where required. Otherwise, received agent-to-agent messages will be forwarded to all skills implementing a handler for the specified protocol and the developer needs to take care to handle them appropriately (e.g. avoid multiple replies to a single message).

Outgoing Messages

  • Skills deposit Messages in OutBox
  • OutBox constructs an Envelope from the Message

  • Multiplexer assigns messages to relevant Connection based on the following rules:

    1. Component to component messages are routed by their component_id
    2. Agent to agent messages are routed following four rules:
      1. checks if EnvelopeContext exists and specifies a Connection, if so uses that else
      2. checks which connection handled the last message from sender, if present uses that else
      3. checks if default routing is specified for the protocol_id referenced in the Envelope, if so uses that else
      4. sends to default Connection.

  • Connections can process Envelopes directly or encode them for transport to another agent.

Usage of the EnvelopeContext

The EnvelopeContext is used to maintain agent-to-agent communication only and is managed almost entirely by the framework. The developer can set the EnvelopeContext explicitly for the first message in a dialogue to achieve targeted routing to connections (see 2. for outgoing messages). This is relevant when the same agent can be reached via multiple connections.

The EnvelopeContext is not sent to another agent.