BDI Architecture (Belief-Desire-Intention)

An agent architecture that separates represented information about the environment into beliefs, possible objectives into desires, and execution commitments into intentions. Perceptions update beliefs; deliberation selects which desires become commitments; plans turn those intentions into actions.

In LLM-based agents, these components need to exist as application state and rules without attributing mental states to the model. Beliefs can become stale, desires may compete, and intentions may remain active after the environment changes. Evidence updates, conflict resolution, and abandonment criteria are part of the architecture.