pygarg: A Python engine for argumentation

• Published in: Argument & computation Vol. 16; no. 3; pp. 425 - 430
• Main Author: Mailly, Jean-Guy
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.10.2025
• Subjects: SAT-based solver; Abstract argumentation; Python software
• ISSN: 1946-2166; 1946-2174; 1946-2174
• DOI: 10.3233/AAC-230019

Recent advancements in algorithms for abstract argumentation make it possible now to solve reasoning problems even with argumentation frameworks of large size, as demonstrated by the results of the various editions of the International Competition on Computational Models of Argumentation (ICCMA). However, the solvers participating to the competition may be hard to use for non-expert programmers, especially if they need to incorporate these algorithms in their own code instead of simply using the command-line interface. Moreover, some ICCMA solvers focus on the ICCMA tracks, and do not implement algorithms for other problems. In this paper we describe pygarg, a Python implementation of the SAT-based approach used in the argumentation solver CoQuiAAS. Contrary to CoQuiAAS and most of the participants to the various editions of ICCMA, pygarg incorporates all problems that have been considered in the main track of any edition of ICCMA. We show how to easily use pygarg via a command-line interface inspired by ICCMA competitions, and then how it can be used in other Python scripts as a third-party library.