Incompatible goals among multiple agents working on domains
involving finite constraints can be a source of conflict. This
conflict, in the form of incompatible constraints established locally
by the agents and imposed on the negotiated variables, may break the
dialogue between the agents, even though they could, in principle,
reach an agreement. A common means of coordinating multi-agent systems
is by using protocols, by which are attached constraints on the
interaction; but protocols are brittle, in the sense that the
constraints they contain may either succeed or fail, and if they fail
the entire protocol may fail. Therefore, this talk aims to discuss on
applying a constraint relaxation technique originally for automated
negotiation, using a distributed protocol language called the
Lightweight Coordination Calculus (LCC), in order to overcome a class
of conflicts, making protocols less brittle. This approach is
illustrated in a scenario involving the ordering and configuration of a
computer between the customer and vendor agents.