Contract Net

Coordination occurs via bidding or price signals, where an agent broadcasts a task and others bid based on their capabilities, cost, or utility. Typical conditions for use: Tasks must be distributed dynamically; Agents possess varying capacities or costs. The central trade-off: Scalable and flexible resource allocation is gained against the difficult design…

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Concept

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In brief

Contract Net in brief

The Contract Net protocol distributes tasks through a call for proposals: a manager requests capabilities, agents bid, and the manager awards the task.

Where does it come from?

Reid G. Smith described the Contract Net protocol in 1980 as a protocol for distributed problem solving. It emerged from the need to assign tasks dynamically by capability and cost in open, heterogeneous agent systems.

The mental model

A manager broadcasts a task, agents respond with bids, and the selected agent executes the work and reports the result. This suits dynamic allocation; communication overhead and strategic or incomplete bids remain limits.