Fipa 00025 Interaction Protocol Library

---
license: Apache-2.0
name: fipa-00025-interaction-protocol-library
description: Specifies role-based interaction protocols with explicit conversation state and local transport/failure overlays. NOT a conformance, reliability, or authorization guarantee.
allowed-tools: [Read, Write, Edit, Glob, Grep]
metadata:
  category: Research & Academic
  tags: [fipa, interaction-protocols, acl, conversations]
---
# FIPA interaction protocol library

Choose a named protocol version only after defining roles, communicative acts, content language/ontology, conversation identity, terminal states, and the profile that owns timeout, duplicate, cancellation, and late-message handling. A nominal FIPA state machine does not make those transport or effect rules universal.

## 1. Instantiate a role protocol

Bind initiator/responder roles, conversation ID, protocol/version, content schema, deadline owner, and expected terminal acts. Correlate every inbound message to the declared conversation before changing local state.

```mermaid
sequenceDiagram
  participant I as Initiator role
  participant R as Responder role
  I->>R: protocol act, conversation ID, content
  R-->>I: declared response act or refusal
  I->>I: apply separate transport policy
```

## 2. Overlay failure rules without rewriting protocol semantics

A local profile says whether a deadline means abandon, query state, retry an idempotent request, or escalate. It must preserve duplicate and late messages for correlation/audit rather than treating absence as success.

```mermaid
flowchart TD
  M[Inbound message] --> C{Conversation and legal state?}
  C -->|yes| N[Apply declared state transition]
  C -->|duplicate or late| A[Record and apply local profile]
  C -->|unknown ID| R[Reject or route by local profile]
  D[Deadline] --> Q[Reconcile state before retry or cancellation]
```

## 3. Worked request exchange

For `conversation=quote-7`, bind a requester and provider, an exact request content schema, and a terminal inform/refuse/failure set. A late `inform` after local cancellation is not silently accepted: consult the cancellation/effect profile and record the result. This is a constructed operational profile, not a claim about every FIPA library protocol.

## Sources and limits

[FIPA XC00025D](https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?doi=e772d3fb25d0edc5d39caed97dc1c21841935d97&repid=rep1&type=pdf) metadata was available but its body was not used. [FIPA XC00037H](https://jmvidal.cse.sc.edu/library/XC00037H.pdf) was read for communicative-act semantics and its conformance-testing limit. [JADE documentation](https://jade.tilab.com/doc/api/jade/domain/FIPAAgentManagement/package-summary.html) is implementation provenance only.

## 4. Selection, composition, and diagnosis

| Need | Protocol design move | Failure diagnostic |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Replaceable participants | Name initiator/responder roles, then bind identities at instantiation. | Identity-based routing hides replacement coupling. |
| Reuse | Parameterize roles, content, deadlines, and terminal acts. | One-off copies drift in exception handling. |
| Multi-stage conversation | Compose nested (one protocol inside a state), interleaved (distinct IDs progress independently), or parameterized family instances. | A shared ID merges concurrent state. |
| Concurrent choices | State AND, OR, or XOR explicitly in the protocol artifact. | “branch” alone gives participants incompatible interpretations. |

Worked composition: `procure-9` uses a request subconversation `quote-9` nested before award, while `audit-9` is interleaved under its own ID. A response for `quote-9` cannot advance `audit-9`. The protocol artifact records whether both quotes are required (AND), one viable quote suffices (OR), or exactly one supplier may win (XOR). Compliance with a nominal act sequence is not robust interoperability: the local profile still must define duplicate, late, cancellation, and effect reconciliation behavior.