Soar 9.6.0 is the current, stable version of Soar. It is the first major release in a few years and includes six key new features and hundreds of important bug fixes and code improvements:
  1. Explanation-Based Chunking: The first official release of a new, far more powerful rule learning algorithm that replaces chunking, Soar's original general learning mechanism
  2. Instance-based model of semantic memory: Can be used in a greater variety of ways and integrates with other aspects of Soar much more cleanly
  3. Streamlined user interface: Has far fewer top-level commands with improved presentation and feedback
  4. Explanations: A new explain command provides interactive exploration of an agent's rule learning experiences
  5. Visualizations: A new visualize command creates graphical representations of Soar's memory systems and even some of its processing
  6. Spreading activation: The first beta release of a model of spreading activation in semantic memory
Use the menu at the bottom of this post to access the full release notes.


How to Install and Launch Soar
  1. Download Soar 9.6.0 Multi-Platform and extract to the folder of your choice
    • Windows users: Avoid path names that are very long or contain spaces or parentheses. They may prevent the software from running.
  2. Navigate to the folder you extracted to
  3. Launch Soar
    • To launch Soar within a graphical user interface
      • Windows users, run SoarJavaDebugger.bat
      • Linux and Mac users, run SoarJavaDebugger.sh
    • To launch Soar using a command line interface,
      • Windows users, run Soar_CLI.bat
      • Linux and Mac users, run Soar_CLI.sh
      • You can also navigate to the /bin directory in a terminal and run the Soar executable directly
The Soar Manual is not included in the download and can be found here.

Note: This binary download requires a 64-bit operating system. If you'd like to use the graphical debugger, Java must also be installed.

The following menu allows you to access three other sections:
  1. Full release notes
  2. Troubleshooting tips
  3. Getting additional help