MyPDDL: Tools for efficiently creating PDDL domains and problems

Abstract: The Planning Domain Definition Language (PDDL) is the state-of-the-art language for specifying planning problems in artificial intelligence research. Writing and maintaining these planning problems, however, can be time-consuming and error prone. To address this issue, we present myPDDL-a modular toolkit for developing and manipulating PDDL domains and problems. To evaluate myPDDL, we compare its features to existing knowledge engineering tools for PDDL. In a user test, we additionally assess two of its modules, namely the syntax highlighting feature and the type diagram generator. The users of syntax highlighting detected 36% more errors than non-users in an erroneous domain file. The average time on task for questions on a PDDL type hierarchy was reduced by 48% when making the type diagram generator available. This implies that myPDDL can support knowledge engineers well in the PDDL design and analysis process.