Providing dynamic learning for software agents in a simulation is described. The software agents with learners are capable of learning from examples. When a non-player character queries the learner, it can provide a next action similar to a player character. A game designer provides program code, from which compile-time steps determine a set of raw features. The code may identify a function (like computing distances). At compile-time steps, determining these raw features in response to a scripting language, so the designer can specify which code should be referenced. A set of derived features, responsive to the raw features, may be relatively simple, more complex, or determined in response to a learner. The set of such raw and derived features form a context for a learner. Learners might be responsive to (more basic) learners, to results of state machines, to calculated derived features, or to raw features. The learner includes a machine learning technique.