Multi-agent systems with virtual stigmergy

•Agents can cooperate by operating on a decentralized data structure.•Attribute-based predicates can intuitively describe interaction constraints.•Preliminary results towards automated verification of global properties. We introduce a simple language for multi-agent systems that lends itself to intuitive design of local specifications. Agents operate on (parts of) a decentralized data structure, the stigmergy, that contains their (partial) knowledge. Such knowledge is asynchronously propagated across local stigmergies. In this way, local changes may influence global behavior. The main novelty is that our interaction mechanism combines stigmergic interaction with attribute-based communication. Specific conditions for interaction can be expressed in the form of predicates over exposed features of the agents. Additionally, agents may access a global environment. After presenting the language, we show its expressiveness by considering some illustrative case studies. We also include preliminary results towards automated verification via a mechanizable symbolic encoding that enables us to exploit verification tools developed for mainstream languages.