Agent-Oriented Requirements Engineering Using ConGolog and i*
Wang Xi-yun, Yves Lespérance · 2001
: Agent-oriented approaches are becoming popular in software engineering, both as architectural frameworks, and as modeling frameworks for requirements engineering and design. i* is an informal diagram-based language for early-phase requirements engineering that supports the modeling of social dependencies between agents and how process design choices affect the agents' goals both functional and non-functional. ConGolog is an expressive logic-based formalism for specifying processes that involves multiple agents. Tools are being developed to support the validation of ConGolog process models though simulation and verification. The two formalisms complement each other well, and in this work, we develop a methodology for their combined use in requirements engineering. The i* SR-diagram language is extended with process specification annotations, which allow the SR model of a system to be refined and then mapped into a ConGolog model. The mapping must satisfy a set of mapping rules, which ensure that it specifies which elements in the two models are related and that the models are consistent. The methodology is illustrated on a meeting scheduling application example. 1