Interfaces & Connectivity

Concept & Purpose

Agents cannot operate in a vacuum. To perform real-world tasks, they must pull data from sensors, query IT databases, or write setpoints to machine controllers.

YAIFA abstracts these communication paths into **Ports**. An agent's ports are structured gateways that translate external signals into internal agent Beliefs, or turn agent Actions into external system commands.

Supported Interface Protocols

YAIFA supports the most important enterprise and operational technology (OT) interfaces out of the box:

Protocol / Interface	Primary Use Case	Description
OPC-UA	Industrial Automation (OT)	Read/write sensor values, machine states, and safety logs directly from PLCs.
MQTT	IoT & Pub/Sub Brokers	Asynchronous message streams for telemetry, status reporting, and event triggers.
REST API	Cloud & IT Systems	Standard HTTP integration for ERP, MES, CRM, and third-party web services.
SQL & MongoDB	Database Storage	Structured relational databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL) and document stores (MongoDB).
CSV & Python	Local Files & Scripts	Flat files for batch import/export, or direct function calls via Python scripts.
MAS Blackboard	Inter-Agent Exchange	Shared blackboard space enabling asynchronous coordination between agents in a flow.

Technical Realization

Ports are configured declaratively in the agent's `agent.json` file. Each port has a specific `source_type` and its corresponding `source_config`:

// Example of an OPC-UA observer port definition
{
  "id": "port_sensor_temperature",
  "name": "Line 1 Temperature Sensor",
  "scope": "input",
  "source_type": "opcua",
  "source_config": {
    "endpoint_url": "opc.tcp://192.168.12.100:4840",
    "node_namespace_index": 2,
    "node_identifier": "Line1.TempSensor.Value",
    "poll_interval_ms": 1000
  }
}

During code generation, YAIFA reads this configuration and links the port to its respective transport protocol client. The developer only writes standard Python logic using the structured payload, without handling socket protocols or raw network connections.