The agent-oriented programming language for JADE agents.
In agent-oriented programming, software systems are composed of several autonomous, independent, and distributed entities (agents) interacting asynchronously by exchanging messages.
Jadescript comes with a dedicated Eclipse IDE Plug-in that provides graphical support to develop and run agents.
- Eclipse Plugin Download
- Compiler Download (not needed if you use the above plug-in)
- Programmer's Guide
If you want to cite Jadescript, please cite the following paper:
Federico Bergenti, Giovanni Caire, Stefania Monica, Agostino Poggi. The first twenty years of agent-based software development with JADE. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, 34(2):36, 2020.
In this example, two agents (Ping and Pong) repeatedly exchange messages back and forth.
Agents declarations are introduced by the agent keyword.
agent Ping
uses ontology PingPong
on create do
log "Agent 'Ping' created."
activate WaitFromPong
activate SendRequest
agent Pong
uses ontology PingPong
on create do
log "Agent 'Pong' created."
activate WaitAndReply
Jadescript agents use ontologies to manipulate concepts and to reason about actions and logical propositions/predicates. Ontologies are also important to ensure that two agents using the same ontology share the same interpretation of the contents of their messages.
ontology PingPong
action Reply
proposition Received
The tasks of agents (e.g., sending or reacting to messages, schedule activities...) are defined with behaviours.
cyclic behavior WaitAndReply
for agent Pong
on message request Reply do
sender = sender of message
log "received 'Reply' request from agent '"
+ name of sender + "'"
inform Received to sender
one shot behavior SendRequest
for agent Ping
on execute do
log "sending 'Reply' request..."
send message request Reply to "Pong"@
cyclic behaviour WaitFromPong
for agent Ping
on message inform Received do
sender = sender of message
log "received 'Received' response from agent '"
+ name of sender + "'"
activate SendRequest after "PT1S" as duration
To learn how to set up, develop, and run this example (and others), refer to the Jadescript Programmer's Guide.
git clone https://github.com/aiagents/jadescript.git;- Open Eclipse and select/create a workspace;
- Select File > Import ... > General > Existing Projects into Workspace and click Next;
- Choose Select root directory and fill in the blank with the location of the directory
[...clone directory...]/jadescript/Jadescript; - Make sure that all the found projects are selected;
- Complete the import wizard by clicking Finish and waiting for workspace building (you will see errors in the projects, but they will disappear with the following steps);
- In the Package Explorer, navigate to it.unipr.ailab.jadescript > src > package
it.unipr.ailab.jadescript> right click onJadescript.xtext> Run As > Generate Xtext Artifacts; - Wait for the build process to finish.
Note: when launching the runtime Eclipse instance, remember to re-import the example projects (which can be found in [...git clone dir...]/jadescript/runtime-EclipseXtext/).
Run the ANT script it.unipr.ailab.jadescript/createStandaloneJar.ant. In Eclipse, simply right-click the file and select Run As > Ant Build. The resulting JAR file will be located in [...clone dir...]/StandaloneCompilerJar/.
In Eclipse, right-click on the it.unipr.ailab.jadescript.feature, then click on Export....
In the dialog window, select Plug-in Development > Deployable features.
In the following wizard, make sure that:
- in the Destination tab, Archive file is selected;
- in the Options tab, Categorize repository is enabled, and that the field at its right points to
[...clone dir...]/Jadescript/it.unipr.ailab.jadescript.repository/category.xml.
Then click on Finish.
The project it.unipr.ailab.jadescript, it.unipr.ailab.jadescript.ui and all the examples in runtime-EclipseXtext require the JAR file jadescript.jar both in the build path and in the classpath for the plugin runtime.
The JAR file is created by the Eclipse project it.unipr.ailab.jadescript.lib.
If any of the contents of this project is modified, you need to export the corresponding JAR from the project.
When exporting with Eclipse, export the JAR file to the directory outJar in the project directory (i.e. it.unipr.ailab.jadescript.lib/outJar/jadescript.jar).
Then navigate with the terminal to the root directory of the repository and run ./addLibJARs.sh, which will copy the new JAR file to all the other project directories and to the directories of the example projects that require it.
├── jadescript/ - Repo root
├─ Jadescript/ - Language projects original workspace
│ ├ it.unipr.ailab.jadescript/ - Main Project (grammar, semantics, mwe2 workflow...)
│ ├ it.unipr.ailab.jadescript.ui/ - Eclipse UI project (editor, wizards, icons, run as...)
│ ├ it.unipr.ailab.jadescript.ide/ - Required by .ui
│ ├ it.unipr.ailab.jadescript.lib/ - Project for the jadescript.jar artifact
│ ├ it.unipr.ailab.jadescript.tests/ - JUnit tests for the compiler
│ ├ it.unipr.ailab.jadescript.stdlibgen/ - Project used to programmatically generate Jadescript builtin libraries (WIP)
│ ├ it.unipr.ailab.jadescript.repository/ - Used to generate the plugin installation .zip
│ └ it.unipr.ailab.jadescript.feature/ - Used to generate the plugin installation .zip
├─ runtime-EclipseXtext/ - Examples/Tests workspace
│ ├ PingPong/ - Example: Simple ping-pong with a counter, between two agents
│ ├ AlarmClock/ - Example: Time-based agent behaviour
│ ├ MusicShop/ - Example: A set of buyers negotiate music items (CDs...) with sellers
│ ├ AsynchronousBacktracking/ - Example: ABT implementation inspired from the algoithm in Shoham's book
│ ├ HelloWorld/ - Example: The classic "HelloWorld!" output
│ ├ EngishAuction/ - Example: An auction with an Auctioneer agent and several Bidder agents
│ ├ Examples/ - Example: Other small, single-source-file examples
│ ├ Tests/ - Test: Project to test the Jadescript plugin
└─ addLibJARs.sh - BASH script used to automate the update/copy of dependency JAR files into example projects