Agents

An agent is an internal background process operating on the server that runs activities on a periodic basis. In a multinode cluster, an agent can run on multiple nodes.

Agents are implemented through two facilities:

• Agents rules – Instances of Rule-Agent-Queue that specify the agents defined for one ruleset, the activity that each agent runs, how the agent handles the queue, and the interval at which the agent runs.
• Agent schedule data instances – Instances of Data-Agent-Queue that determine whether an agent runs.

You can modify the behavior of an agent listed in an agents rule in a locked ruleset (for example, any of the standard Pega Platform agents rules) by editing one or more of the generated agent rules or agent schedule data instances.

• New Rule-Agent-Queue – When the Master Agent detects a new Rule-Agent-Queue, it creates the new agent schedule instance. You can modify the following fields in the agent schedule without unlocking the ruleset:
  • Pattern
  • Interval
  • Access Group

  Restart the agent to enable the changes.

• Updated Rule-Agent-Queue – When the Master Agent detects a change in a Rule-Agent-Queue, it updates the agent schedule instance. Existing agents that belong to the ruleset are updated, removed, or remain unchanged.

  If the Master Agent does not update the agent schedule data instance from the changes made to the Rule-Agent-Queue for that ruleset name and version, the corresponding agent schedule data instance must be deleted. The next run of the Master Agent detects the change and creates a new agent schedule data instance for that ruleset.