Sending Messages

Message Structure

Agents send messages by adding JSON objects to their messages array. The object is defined as:

{
    to: "string" || "string"[]// an agent_id or agent_name
    type: "string" // a string that defines the type of the message
    data: "any" // an object that serves as the payload
}

• to: An agent id or an agent name. The agent with the corresponding agent_id field or the agent(s) with the corresponding agent_name field will receive the message in the next time step. If you want to send a message to multiple agents -- multicasting -- you can do so in one of two ways:

  • The "to" field of a message is an array, so you can include multiple agent names and IDs.
  • When sending a message to an agent_name that is shared by multiple agents, they will all receive the message. For instance, if five agents have the field agent_name set to "forklift", they will all receive a message defined with to: "forklift"
• type: A user-defined string that serves as metadata for the object, describing the message and/or its purpose.
• data: A user-defined object that can contain any arbitrary data.

Code Examples

const behavior = (state, context) => {
  state.messages.push({
    to: "people",
    type: "greeting",
    data: { msg: "hello" },
  });
};

const behavior = (state, context) => {
  state.addMessage("people", "greeting", { msg: "hello" });
};