Contract Net Protocol: Multi-Agent Task Auction Simulator (2D)

The Contract Net Protocol is one of the oldest and most practical coordination mechanisms in multi-agent systems: instead of a central scheduler deciding who does what, a manager agent announces each task and worker agents bid on it based on their own estimated cost and current load, with the lowest bid winning the contract. This 2D canvas rendition draws the negotiation live on a flat plane — a manager node at the center broadcasts tasks to a ring of worker agents, visible bid beams show each worker's offer, the winning bid is highlighted and the task is awarded and executed, and the load-balancing effect of the load-penalty term becomes visible as busy workers price themselves out of new contracts. A running random-assignment baseline is scored alongside every real auction so the measured efficiency gain of market-based task allocation is visible, not just asserted. Tune the number of workers, task arrival rate, bidding noise and load penalty to see how the auction's efficiency and fairness change in real time.