This article proposes an agent-oriented methodology called MAS-CommonKADS and develops a case study. This methodology extends the knowledge engineering methodology CommonKADS with techniquesfrom objectoriented and protocol engineering methodologies. The methodology consists of the development of seven models: Agent Model, that describes the characteristics of each agent; Task Model, that describes the tasks that the agents carry out; Expertise Model, that describes the knowledge needed by the agents to achieve their goals; Organisation Model, that describes the structural relationships between agents (software agents and/or human agents); Coordination Model, that describes the dynamic relationships between software agents; Communication Model, that describes the dynamic relationships between human agents and their respective personal assistant software agents; and Design Model, that refines the previous models and determines the most suitable agent architecture for each agent, and the requirements of the agent network.

An important recent idea to facilitate knowledge sharing is to provide libraries of reusable components (models, ontologies) to end users. However, when libraries become large, finding the right library components is a knowledge demanding task in itself. Our suggestion therefore is that methods will be needed that help the user to gradually construct such knowledge.