# From Markov Decision Process (MDP) to Semi-MDP: What is it in a nutshell?

Markov Decision Process (MDP) is a mathematical formulation of decision making. An agent is the decision maker. In the reinforcement learning framework, he is the learner or the decision maker. We need to give this agent information so that it is able to learn to decide. As such, an MDP is a tuple: $$\left < S, A, P, \gamma, R \right>$$. (State, Action, Probability Transitions, discount factor, Reward).

It is basically all you need to know about the problem to be able to make a good decision to optimally perform a task.

I am reading the paper: "Between MDPs and semi-MDPs: A framework for Temporal Abstraction in Reinforcement Learning" (by Richard S.Sutton, Doina Precup and Satinder Singh).

I do not understand so far how we got from MDP to semi-MDP (SMDP). I always thought it was either 'Yes' it is an MDP, or 'No' (one of the components of the tuple is not satisfied) and it is not an MDP.

Why is there a middle ground like Semi-MDP? (Feels like an MDP?)

I ask for your insights and intuition.