Using agentpy, how to create an agent during a simulation

Question

I have a simple simulation of a company using agentpy. It is doing a great job of modelling promotions, but I'd also like to be able to model people joining and leaving the company.

Leaving is easy, I can just set a flag to inactive or something, but joining is more complicated. Do I need to make a bunch of agents during setup and set their state to as yet unknown, or can I create an agent during a step and add them in?

The person class is defined like this:

class PersonAgent(ap.Agent):

    def setup(self):
        p = PEOPLE_DF.iloc[self.id] # 👈 the existing people are in a spreadsheet
        self.name = p.full_name
        self.gender = get_gender(p.gender)
        self.bvn_rank = get_rank(p.b_rank)
        # self.capability = float(p.capability)
        print()

    def rank_transition(self):
        self.bvn_rank = transition(self.b_rank, self.gender)

I'm guessing I'd do something with the __init__, but I've had no luck figuring that out.

Answer 1

Yes, you can initiate new agents during a simulation step.

Here are some examples:

class MyModel(ap.Model):

    def setup(self):

        # Initiate agents at the start of the simulation
        self.agents = ap.AgentList(self, 10, PersonAgent)

    def step(self):
        
        # Create new agents during a simulation step
        self.single_new_agent = PersonAgent(self)
        self.list_of_new_agents = ap.AgentList(self, 10, PersonAgent)
        
        # Add them to the original list (if you want)
        self.agents.append(self.single_new_agent)
        self.agents.extend(self.list_of_new_agents)