Work

Structural Temporal Logic for Mechanized Program Verification

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Mechanized verification of liveness properties for infinite programs with effects and nondeterminism is challenging. Existing temporal reasoning frameworks operate at the level of models such as traces and automata. Reasoning happens at a very low-level, requiring complex nested (co-)inductive proof techniques and familiarity with proof assistant mechanics (e.g., the guardedness checker). Further, reasoning at the level of models instead of program constructs creates a verification gap that loses the benefits of modularity and composition enjoyed by structural program logics such as Hoare Logic. To address this verification gap, and the lack of compositional proof techniques for temporal specifications, we propose ticl , a new structural temporal logic. Using ticl , we encode complex (co-)inductive proof techniques as structural lemmas and focus our reasoning on variants and invariants. We show that it is possible to perform compositional proofs of general temporal properties in a proof assistant, while working at a high level of abstraction. We demonstrate the benefits of ticl by giving mechanized proofs of safety and liveness properties for programs with scheduling, concurrent shared memory, and distributed consensus, demonstrating a low proof-to-code ratio.

Source: Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages

DOI: 10.1145/3763091

Authors: Eleftherios Ioannidis, Yannick Zakowski, Steve Zdancewic, Sebastian Angel

Institutions: University of Pennsylvania, Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies du numérique

Language: English

Topic: Logic, programming, and type systems

Subfield: Artificial Intelligence

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: diamond

Funder: National Science Foundation

Awards: Collaborative Research: CNS Core: Medium: Movement of Computation and Data in Splitkernel-disaggregated, Data-intensive Systems, National Science Foundation Expeditions in Computing: Learning Directed Operating System -- A Clean-Slate Paradigm for Operating Systems Design and Implementation, Collaborative Research: CISE: Large: Systems Support for Run-Anywhere Serverless, FMitF: Track I: Automatic Migration to Serverless Infrastructure, Correctly and Efficiently, SaTC: CORE: Medium: Secure and Formally-verified Low-level Languages