Abstract. Reaction RuleML is a standardized rule markup language for the representation and interchange of reaction rules. This paper gives an introduction to the core knowledge representation mechanisms of Reaction RuleML 1.0 such as multi-sorted signatures and their interpretation, action primitives for knowledge updates, interchange and testing, ordersorted external type systems and the Reaction RuleML metamodel, scopes and mode declarations, semantic profiles, imports of documents, modules and messages. These mechanisms form the basis for an adequate treatment of rules, events and actions, as needed in Semantic Complex Event Processing (SCEP), such as, interchange, translation and testing based on the intended semantics defined in semantic profiles; modularization and distribution of knowledge interfaces with their signatures defining, e.g., complex event detection patterns; closed scoped reasoning on top of scoped modules with dynamic constructive views on meta knowledge; transactional complex actions; conversation based message interchange for Question Answering (Q&A) and rule-based agent architectures such as RuleResponder, etc.