dbluhm / agent-concept

[ARCHIVED] Evolved into aries-staticagent-python

Agent Concept

This is an exploration into a new routing and transport handling mechanism for agents. Most of the ideas are evolutions of the functionality featured in the Python Reference Agent. This concept agent may eventually end up as the Python Reference Agent 2.0 and will almost certainly become the backbone of the Agent Test Suite (DID Comm Protocol Test Suite).

As this agent has developed, three main things differentiate it from the original reference agent:

1. Cleaner separation of concerns
   • Transport (both sending and receiving) of messages are handled solely by the Conductor.
   • Packaging is also handled by the Conductor.
   • The Agent only ever handles fully unpacked messages with Message Trust Context attached. (Currently only provisional context is implemented, pending a more complete solution)
2. New message handling mechanism
   • Message handlers can be registered in three different ways (detailed examples below)
     • @agent.route('message_type') decorator on handler methods.
     • @module decorator and explicit route definitions with @route_def decorator.
     • @module decorator and implicit route definitions through methods matching message type names.
3. Hooks
   • By defining hook points and registering hooks for a hook point, cleaner separation between modules and validators can be achieved.
   • Hook points inside of a class can be defined with @self_hook_point decorator on the method to wrap in hooks.
   • Hook points outside of a class can be defined with @hook_point decorator on the method to wrap in hooks.
   • Hooks are declared using @hook('post_METHOD') decorator or through register_hook methods on hook-able objects.

Stay tuned for a more in depth README