Environment in Agent-Oriented Software Engineering Methodologies

The key role of environment as a first-class abstraction in the engineering of MAS (multi-agent systems) is today generally acknowledged in the MAS community. However, the support for the notion of environment in today AOSE (agent-oriented software engineering) methodologies is still either absent, weak, or incomplete at best. 

In this paper we first review, classify, and compare existing AOSE methodologies according to their support for the notion of MAS environment. Then we suggest a general approach for extending existing AOSE methodologies toward full environment support.