Handling parameters in AgentOS component programming

[andyk]

See the following issues #166, #168, #177, which this design should address/fix.

The AgentOS component programming model provides a standard (reproducible) way to prepare and run a Python program by having the runtime:

1. load parameters for the run (the parameters can be for the __init__() function of the component whose entry point is being run, or the __init__() of any of the components in its dependency DAG, or the actual entry-point (i.e. function) being run.)
2. instantiate the class and its dependency DAG (passing in the appropriate parameters for each from step 1 above)
3. call the entry point (i.e., one of the class instances's methods)
4. record all of this (plus any metrics and artifacts logged during the run) as a Run Record, which is sorted to the Run History.

As you can see in number 1 above, handling parameters in a clean, easy to understand way is very important!

Desirable functionality:

• allow any param to be provided as a flag to the CLI agentos run [component] [--entry-point] command
• allow params to be specified via a file
• allow defaults to be set and handled in an intuitive cascading way (e.g., entry-point functions can be defined with default values, which should be overridden by values provided in a params file, which should in turn be overridden by values provided at the CLI)
• OPEN QUESTION: should we support shell environment variables too?
• STRETCH GOAL: allow one param to be passed to multiple entry-points in the run (i.e., allow a param to be shared by multiple component entry-points)