OFBiz AI Plugin — Agent Framework for LLM Integration

Status: In Development | JIRA: OFBIZ-13408 | PR: apache/ofbiz-plugins#244

The Approach

An optional plugin. No changes to the framework. Install it and AI is available as a standard OFBiz service. Leave it out and nothing changes.

Capability	Why
Zero framework intrusion	Deployments without the plugin must be completely unaffected.
Provider independence	OpenAI today, Anthropic tomorrow, local Ollama for air-gapped environments. Configuration drives the choice, not code.
OFBiz-native invocation	Callable as a standard service from anywhere — Groovy, ECA, screen action. No AI SDK imports in business logic.
Declarative tool use	The AI must be able to call OFBiz services as tools, declared in XML. Adding a tool requires no change to agent infrastructure.
Full observability	Every run, every tool call, every token — persisted to the database. No log mining to answer "what did the AI do and when."
Permission enforcement	Tool execution respects the OFBiz permission model. The AI gets no elevated access.
Cost awareness	Token usage trackable per agent, per user, per time window. Estimated spend queryable as a service.
Conversation continuity	Named threads for multi-turn workflows. The caller passes a thread ID, not a message history.
Human approval gate	Irreversible tools require human approval before execution. The agent suspends, persists state, and resumes after a decision.
Operational UI	Monitoring, approvals, cost review, and conversation history accessible to operators without a database client.