The Envoy Framework addresses a need for computer-based assistants or agents that operate in conjunction with users' existing applications, helping them perform tedious, repetitive, or time-consuming tasks more easily and efficiently. Envoys carry out missions for users by invoking envoy-aware applications called operatives and inform users of mission results via envoy-aware applications called informers. The distributed, open architecture developed for Envoys is derived from an analysis of the best characteristics of existing agent systems. This architecture has been designed as a model for how agent technology can be seamlessly integrated into the electronic desktop. It defines a set of application programmer's interfaces so that developers may convert their software to envoy-aware applications. A subset of the architecture described in this paper has been implemented in an Envoy Framework prototype.

Current computing systems typically support only mid-century information structures: simple hierarchies. Hypertext technologies enable users to impose many structures on document sets and, consequently, provide many paths to desired information, but they require that users work their way through some structure. Full-text search eliminates this requirement by ignoring structure altogether. The search strategy can also be restricted to work within specified contexts. The architecture provided for search readily supports automatic linking. These ideas have been tested in IRIS Intermedia.