meanslanguage

Meanslanguage is a formal language for encoding means-ends reasoning in symbolic form. It represents goals, the means to achieve them, and the agents involved. It is a theoretical concept rather than a widely adopted standard.

The core elements are agents, goals, means (tools and methods), resources, constraints, and actions. It separates the goal from the process used to reach it, enabling explicit reasoning about instrumentality and feasibility under resource limits.

Syntax and semantics are designed to be machine-interpretable. Common constructs include a means predicate linking an agent, a goal, and a set of means; action and resource predicates; and nested means, where a means can itself be achieved by another means. The semantics map sentences to states and transitions in planning domains, supporting inference about alternative plans and plan validation.

Applications include AI planning, multi-agent coordination, and knowledge representation of tool use. Prototypes use meanslanguage to compare planning approaches, model substitutions of tools, and integrate resource constraints with goal-driven behavior. It often complements existing planning formalisms such as PDDL.

History and status: Meanslanguage remains a niche concept with no universal standard or widely deployed tooling. It is primarily discussed in theoretical and experimental contexts as a framework for examining transparency, accountability, and decision-making in automated systems.

See also: means-end analysis, planning languages, resource-aware reasoning, knowledge representation.