CaSkade Planner - Capability-based Process Planning using SMT

CaSkade-Planner is an automated planning approach to derive process sequences that consist of provided capabilities for one or more required capabilities. It makes use of the CaSk ontology. There are different ways to install and use this tool:

1. Install and run locally
2. Run as a docker container
3. Integrate into your own Python scripts

You can find detailed instructions to every option in the sections below.

Local Installation

Make sure that you have Poetry installed. Clone this repository, open a terminal inside the repo's root folder and install everything using poetry install. Afterwards you can use CaSkade-Planner according to the instructions below.

CLI

CaSkade-Planner provides a command-line interface with two main commands. You can always open the help with the --help option.

Plan from local ontology file

To plan from a local ontology file, use: poetry run caskade-planner-cli plan-from-file

Arguments:
  ONTOLOGY_FILE           Path to your ontology that is used for generating the
                          planning problem  [required]
  REQUIRED_CAPABILITY_IRI IRI of the required capability to plan for  [required]

Options:
  -mh, --max-happenings INTEGER  Maximum number of happenings to consider
                                 [default: 20]
  -problem, --problem-file TEXT  Path to where the generated problem will be
                                 stored
  -model, --model-file TEXT      Path to where the model file will be stored
                                 after solving
  -plan, --plan-file TEXT        Path to where the plan file will be stored
                                 after solving and transformation
  --help                         Show this message and exit.

Example:

poetry run caskade-planner-cli plan-from-file my-ontology.ttl http://example.org/capabilities#RequiredCapability1

Plan from SPARQL endpoint

To plan directly from a SPARQL endpoint, use: poetry run caskade-planner-cli plan-from-endpoint

Arguments:
  ENDPOINT_URL            URL of the SPARQL endpoint  [required]
  REQUIRED_CAPABILITY_IRI IRI of the required capability to plan for  [required]

Options:
  -mh, --max-happenings INTEGER  Maximum number of happenings to consider
                                 [default: 20]
  -problem, --problem-file TEXT  Path to where the generated problem will be
                                 stored
  -model, --model-file TEXT      Path to where the model file will be stored
                                 after solving
  -plan, --plan-file TEXT        Path to where the plan file will be stored
                                 after solving and transformation
  --help                         Show this message and exit.

Example:

poetry run caskade-planner-cli plan-from-endpoint http://localhost:7200/repositories/test-repo http://example.org/capabilities#RequiredCapability1

The plan-from-endpoint command outputs the result as JSON to stdout, making it easy to integrate with other tools.

REST-API

If you want to use CaSkade-Planner as a standalone planning service to be used by other software components, you can integrate it as a REST API. After cloning and installing the project, start the REST API by calling poetry run caskade-planner-api. The planning API runs on port 5000.

Endpoints

• GET /ping - Health check endpoint (returns 204 No Content)
• POST /plan - Main planning endpoint

Planning Request

Send an HTTP POST request to <API-Address>:5000/plan with a JSON body:

{
  "mode": "file" | "sparql-endpoint",
  "requiredCapabilityIri": "<IRI of the required capability>",
  "maxHappenings": 5,  // optional, defaults to 5
  "endpointUrl": "<SPARQL endpoint URL>"  // only for mode="sparql-endpoint"
}

For mode="file", you need to upload the ontology file as multipart/form-data with the key "ontology-file".

Response Format

Both CLI and REST API return results in JSON format:

{
  "timeCreated": "2024-01-01T12:00:00Z",
  "resultType": "sat" | "unsat",
  "plan": {  // only if resultType="sat"
    "plan_steps": [...],
    "plan_length": 5,
    "total_duration": 120
  },
  "unsatCore": [...]  // only if resultType="unsat"
}

Docker

CaSkade-Planner is available as a Docker image on Docker Hub at aljoshakoecher/caskade-planner. The image supports multiple modes of operation through a flexible entrypoint system.

Quick Start

Pull the latest image:

docker pull aljoshakoecher/caskade-planner:latest

Run REST API:

docker run -p 5000:5000 aljoshakoecher/caskade-planner:latest rest

Run CLI commands:

# Plan from file
docker run -it --rm -v "$(pwd):/data" \
  aljoshakoecher/caskade-planner:latest \
  plan-from-file /data/my-ontology.ttl http://example.org/capabilities#RequiredCapability1

# Plan from endpoint
docker run -it --rm \
  aljoshakoecher/caskade-planner:latest \
  plan-from-endpoint http://host.docker.internal:7200/repositories/test-repo http://example.org/capabilities#RequiredCapability1

Available Commands

The Docker image supports the following commands through its entrypoint:

rest - Start REST API Server

docker run -p 5000:5000 aljoshakoecher/caskade-planner:latest rest

Starts the REST API server on port 5000. The API will be accessible at http://localhost:5000.

plan-from-file - Direct File Planning

docker run -it --rm -v "$(pwd):/data" \
  aljoshakoecher/caskade-planner:latest \
  plan-from-file /data/ontology.ttl http://capability.iri [OPTIONS]

Available options:

• --max-happenings INTEGER (default: 20)
• --problem-file TEXT
• --model-file TEXT
• --plan-file TEXT

plan-from-endpoint - Direct Endpoint Planning

docker run -it --rm \
  aljoshakoecher/caskade-planner:latest \
  plan-from-endpoint http://endpoint-url http://capability.iri [OPTIONS]

cli - Full CLI Access

docker run -it --rm -v "$(pwd):/data" \
  aljoshakoecher/caskade-planner:latest \
  cli plan-from-file /data/ontology.ttl http://capability.iri

bash - Interactive Shell

docker run -it --rm -v "$(pwd):/data" \
  aljoshakoecher/caskade-planner:latest bash

Legacy Commands (Still Supported)

For backward compatibility, the original commands still work:

# Original CLI usage
docker run -it --rm -v "$(pwd):/data" \
  aljoshakoecher/caskade-planner:latest \
  caskade-planner-cli plan-from-file /data/my-ontology.ttl http://example.org/capabilities#RequiredCapability1

Docker Compose Integration

For integration into larger systems, you can use Docker Compose:

version: '3.8'
services:
  caskade-planner:
    image: aljoshakoecher/caskade-planner:latest
    ports:
      - "5000:5000"
    volumes:
      - ./data:/data
    # Default command starts REST API
    # Override with: command: ["plan-from-file", "/data/ontology.ttl", "http://cap.iri"]

Notes

• File Access: Mount your local directory with -v "$(pwd):/data" to access local ontology files from within the container
• Network Access: Use host.docker.internal instead of localhost to access services on your host machine from within the container
• Data Persistence: Results can be saved to mounted volumes using the file output options
• Health Checks: The REST API includes a health check endpoint at /ping for monitoring

Python Integration

If you want to integrate CaSkade-Planner directly into your Python scripts, you can use it as a library.

Installation

Using pip:

pip install caskade-planner

Using Poetry:

poetry add caskade-planner

Basic Usage

from smt_planning.smt.cask_to_smt import CaskadePlanner
from smt_planning.planning_result import PlanningResultType

# Create planner instance with required capability
planner = CaskadePlanner("http://example.org/capabilities#RequiredCapability1")

# Option 1: Load ontology from file
planner.with_file_query_handler("my-ontology.ttl")

# Option 2: Use SPARQL endpoint
# planner.with_endpoint_query_handler("localhost:7200/repositories/test-repo")

# Run planning
result = planner.cask_to_smt(max_happenings=20)

# Process results
if result.result_type == PlanningResultType.SAT:
    print(f"Plan found with {result.plan.plan_length} steps")
    for step in result.plan.plan_steps:
        print(f"Step {step.step_number}:")
        for cap in step.capability_appearances:
            print(f"  - {cap.capability_iri}")
else:
    print("No plan found")

Advanced Usage

# Save intermediate files for debugging
result = planner.cask_to_smt(
    max_happenings=20,
    problem_location="problem.smt",  # Save SMT problem
    model_location="model.json",     # Save Z3 model
    plan_location="plan.json"        # Save structured plan
)

# Convert result to JSON
import json
result_json = result.to_json()
print(json.dumps(result_json, indent=2))