Agent-Oriented Software Development: A Case Study

We are developing a methodology, called Tropos, for building agent-oriented software systems. The methodology covers five software development phases: early requirements analysis, late requirements analysis, architectural design, detailed design, and implementation. Throughout, the concepts offered by i*[Yu95] are used to model both the stakeholders in the system`s environment, and the system itself. These concepts actors, who can be (social) agents (organizational, human or software), positions or roles. in addition, the framework offers social dependencies for defining the obligations of actors to other actors (called dependees and dependers respectively). Dependencies may involve a goal, to be fulfilled by the dependee on behalf of the depender, a task to be carried out by the dependee, or a resource to be delivered. The paper presents a case study to illustrate the features and the strengths of the Tropos methodolog