The design tool allows components to be laid out in diagrams that represent different aspects of an application's design. These diagrams are automatically converted to code and code outlines. The design tool uses drag-and-drop to manipulate objects, and provides pan and zoom capabilities. Click here to see full size image

A plan editing tool allows plan reasoning to be laid out as simple diagrams without having to sacrifice the power of the underlying JACK/Java language. Plan reasoning can be entered in descriptive mode, allowing non-programmers to outline the reasoning in natural language (see image above, or click here to see a full size image of a Plan expressed in natural language).

As with the design tool, the plan editing tool allows the user to manipulate objects with drag-and-drop, along with pan and zoom capabilities. Graphical plans are compiled directly to JACK code.

The snapshot (above), shows the Agent Tracing Controller. This interface is used to select which agents to trace and whether to display plan nodes in natural language ("descriptive mode") or as JACK code.

At run-time, plans can be traced graphically — allowing an analyst or developer to observe the plans as they execute. The values of variables used in these plans can also be examined during execution (see image above, showing plan trace using natural language descriptions of nodes).

The screen snapshot (above), shows a plan being traced with JACK Agent Language node descriptors.