AEA quick start

Dependencies & System Requirements

The AEA framework can be used on Windows, Ubuntu/Debian and MacOS. There are a number of base requirements to be installed prior to usage.

You need Python 3.7 or higher as well as Go 1.14.2 or higher installed.

​GCC installation is required:

• Ubuntu: apt-get install gcc
• Windows (with choco installed): choco install mingw
• MacOS X (with home brew): brew install gcc

Option 1: Manual system preparation

Install a compatible Python and Go version on your system (see this external resource for a comprehensive guide).

Option 2: Using an automated install script

We provide a script to automatically install all framework dependencies and the framework itself. This means that if you follow this option, you can skip the installation step that comes later on this page.

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/valory-xyz/open-aea/main/scripts/install.sh --output install.sh
chmod +x install.sh
./install.sh

Option 3: Using Docker

​ We also provide a Docker image with all the needed dependencies.

docker pull valory/open-aea-user:latest

docker run -it -v $(pwd):/agents --workdir=/agents valory/open-aea-user:latest

docker run -it -v %cd%:/agents --workdir=/agents valory/open-aea-user:latest

Getting Started

Ensure, you are in a clean working directory. Create it manually running:

mkdir my_aea_projects/ && cd my_aea_projects/

Unless you are using the docker image, we highly recommend using a virtual environment to ensure consistency across dependencies.

Check that you have pipenv.

which pipenv

If you don't have it, install it. Instructions are here.

Once installed, create a new environment and open it (here we use Python 3.10 but the AEA framework supports any Python >= 3.7).

touch Pipfile && pipenv --python 3.10 && pipenv shell

Installation of Open-AEA

The following installs the entire AEA package which also includes a command-line interface (CLI). (You can skip this step if you used the install script above: Option 2 .)

First, check which shell you are using:

echo "$SHELL"

For bash:

pip install open-aea[all]
pip install open-aea-cli-ipfs

If you are using zsh (default shell in modern MacOS installations) rather than bash type

pip install 'open-aea[all]'
pip install 'open-aea-ledger-ethereum'
pip install 'open-aea-cli-ipfs'

If the installation steps fail, it might be a dependency issue. Make sure you have followed all the relevant system specific steps above under System Requirements.

Setup Open-AEA Author

To configure the AEA with an author.

aea init --remote

Setup Open-AEA Components

AEAs are composed of components. AEAs and AEA components can be developed by anyone and pushed to an IPFS registry for others to use.

Echo skill demo

This is a simple demo that introduces you to the main components of an AEA.

The fastest way to have your first AEA is to fetch one that already exists!

aea fetch open_aea/my_first_aea:0.1.0:bafybeiaf6fgfmljz6pl7q6zfs3lhqmqbzydlqcen3qek5jjly77vhjowra --remote
cd my_first_aea

Install AEA dependencies

aea install

Add and create a private key

All AEAs need a private key to run. Add one now:

aea generate-key ethereum
aea add-key ethereum

Run the AEA

Run the AEA.

aea run

You will see the echo skill running in the terminal window (an output similar to the one below).

    _     _____     _
   / \   | ____|   / \
  / _ \  |  _|    / _ \
 / ___ \ | |___  / ___ \
/_/   \_\|_____|/_/   \_\

v1.7.0

Starting AEA 'my_first_aea' in 'async' mode ...
info: Echo Handler: setup method called.
info: Echo Behaviour: setup method called.
info: [my_first_aea]: Start processing messages...
info: Echo Behaviour: act method called.
info: Echo Behaviour: act method called.
info: Echo Behaviour: act method called.
...

Interact with the AEA

From a different terminal and same directory (i.e. the my_first_aea project), you can send the AEA a message wrapped in an envelope via the input file.

echo 'my_first_aea,sender_aea,fetchai/default:1.0.0,\x12\x10\x08\x01\x12\x011*\t*\x07\n\x05hello,' >> input_file

You will see the Echo Handler dealing with the envelope and responding with the same message to the output_file, and also decoding the Base64 encrypted message in this case.

info: Echo Behaviour: act method called.
Echo Handler: message=Message(sender=sender_aea,to=my_first_aea,content=b'hello',dialogue_reference=('1', ''),message_id=1,performative=bytes,target=0), sender=sender_aea
info: Echo Behaviour: act method called.
info: Echo Behaviour: act method called.

Note, due to the dialogue reference having to be incremented, you can only send the above envelope once!

Stop the AEA

You can stop an AEA by pressing CTRL C.

Once you do, you should see the AEA being interrupted and then calling the teardown() methods:

info: Echo Behaviour: act method called.
info: Echo Behaviour: act method called.
^C my_first_aea interrupted!
my_first_aea stopping ...
info: Echo Handler: teardown method called.
info: Echo Behaviour: teardown method called.

To learn more about the folder structure of an AEA project read on here.

aea create my_first_aea
cd my_first_aea

aea add connection fetchai/stub:0.21.0:bafybeibybboiwgklfiqpkkcw6rwj65s5jalzfzf6mh6fstxdlt6habzwvy --remote

aea add skill fetchai/echo:0.19.0:bafybeicoawiackcbgqo3na3e56tpdc62atag4yxknur77py37caqq4mmya --remote

How Does This AEA work?

Echo skill

Just like humans, AEAs can have skills to achieve their tasks. As an agent developer, you can create skills to add to your own AEAs. You can also choose to publish your skills so others add them to their AEAs. More details on skills can be found on this page .

The above agent has an echo skill, fetched from the registry, which simply echoes any messages it receives back to its sender.

Communication via envelopes and messages

AEAs use envelopes containing messages for communication. To learn more, check out the next section.

Stub connection

Besides skills, AEAs may have one or more connections enabling them to interface with entities in the outside world. For example, an HTTP client connection allows an AEA to communicate with HTTP servers. To read more about connections see this page.

In this demo, we use the stub connection (fetchai/stub0.15.0) to send envelopes to and receive envelopes from the AEA.

A stub connection provides an I/O reader and writer. It uses two files for communication: one for incoming envelopes and the other for outgoing envelopes.

The AEA waits for a new envelope posted to the file my_first_aea/input_file, and adds a response to the file my_first_aea/output_file.

The format of each envelope is the following:

TO,SENDER,PROTOCOL_ID,ENCODED_MESSAGE,

For example:

recipient_aea,sender_aea,fetchai/default:1.0.0,\x08\x01\x12\x011*\x07\n\x05hello,

The framework first calls the setup methods in the skill's Handler and Behaviour classes in that order; after which it repeatedly calls the act method of Behaviour class. This is the main agent loop in action.

Test Quickstart

Write a simple test for the AEA

We can write an end-to-end test for the AEA utilising helper classes provided by the framework.

mkdir packages
cd my_first_aea
aea add protocol fetchai/default:1.0.0:bafybeihdvtmnz7fzy7kwi3wlo6rfl27f6q3g5entplgvq7y23i3v5uoz24 --remote
aea push protocol fetchai/default --local
cd ..
aea delete my_aea

import signal
import time

from aea.common import Address
from aea.mail.base import Envelope
from aea.protocols.base import Message
from aea.protocols.dialogue.base import Dialogue

from packages.fetchai.protocols.default.dialogues import DefaultDialogue, DefaultDialogues
from packages.fetchai.protocols.default.message import DefaultMessage
from packages.fetchai.protocols.default.serialization import DefaultSerializer
from aea.test_tools.test_cases import AEATestCase


class TestEchoSkill(AEATestCase):
    """Test that echo skill works."""

    def test_echo(self):
        """Run the echo skill sequence."""
        process = self.run_agent()
        is_running = self.is_running(process)
        assert is_running, "AEA not running within timeout!"

        # add sending and receiving envelope from input/output files
        sender_aea = "sender_aea"
        def role_from_first_message(
            message: Message, receiver_address: Address
        ) -> Dialogue.Role:
            return DefaultDialogue.Role.AGENT
        dialogues = DefaultDialogues(sender_aea, role_from_first_message)
        message_content = b"hello"
        message = DefaultMessage(
            performative=DefaultMessage.Performative.BYTES,
            dialogue_reference=dialogues.new_self_initiated_dialogue_reference(),
            content=message_content,
        )
        sent_envelope = Envelope(
            to=self.agent_name,
            sender=sender_aea,
            protocol_specification_id=message.protocol_specification_id,
            message=DefaultSerializer().encode(message),
        )

        self.send_envelope_to_agent(sent_envelope, self.agent_name)

        time.sleep(2.0)
        received_envelope = self.read_envelope_from_agent(self.agent_name)

        assert sent_envelope.to == received_envelope.sender
        assert sent_envelope.sender == received_envelope.to
        assert sent_envelope.protocol_specification_id == received_envelope.protocol_specification_id
        received_message = DefaultMessage.serializer.decode(received_envelope.message)
        assert message.content == received_message.content

        check_strings = (
            "Echo Handler: setup method called.",
            "Echo Behaviour: setup method called.",
            "Echo Behaviour: act method called.",
            "content={}".format(message_content),
        )
        missing_strings = self.missing_from_output(process, check_strings)
        assert (
            missing_strings == []
        ), "Strings {} didn't appear in agent output.".format(missing_strings)

        assert (
            self.is_successfully_terminated()
        ), "Echo agent wasn't successfully terminated."

pipenv run pytest test.py

Delete the AEA

Delete the AEA from the parent directory (cd .. to go to the parent directory).

aea delete my_first_aea

Next steps

To gain an understanding of the core components of the framework, please continue to the next page:

• Core components - Part 1