Cobblestone: A Divide-and-Conquer Approach for Automating Formal Verification
Formal verification using proof assistants, such as Coq, is an effective way of improving software quality, but requires significant effort and expertise. Machine learning can automatically synthesize proofs, but such tools are able to prove only a fraction of desired software properties. We introduce Cobblestone, a divide-and-conquer approach for proof synthesis. Cobblestone uses a large language model (LLM) to generate potential proofs, uses those proofs to break the problem into simpler parts, automatically identifies which of those parts were successfully proven, and iterates on the remaining parts to build a correct proof that is guaranteed to be sound, despite the reliance on unsound LLMs. We evaluate Cobblestone on four benchmarks of open-source Coq projects, controlling for training data leakage. Fully automatically, Cobblestone outperforms state-of-the-art non-LLM tools, and proves many theorems that other LLM-based tools cannot, and on many benchmarks, outperforms them. Each Cobblestone run costs only $1.25 and takes 14.7 minutes, on average. Cobblestone can also be used with external input, from a user or another tool, providing a proof structure or relevant lemmas. Evaluated with such an oracle, Cobblestone proves up to 58% of theorems. Overall, our research shows that tools can make use of partial progress and external input to more effectively automate formal verification.
Wed 15 AprDisplayed time zone: Brasilia, Distrito Federal, Brazil change
14:00 - 15:30 | AI for Software Engineering 6Research Track at Europa II Chair(s): Miryung Kim UCLA and Amazon Web Services | ||
14:00 15mTalk | Cobblestone: A Divide-and-Conquer Approach for Automating Formal Verification Research Track Saketh Ram Kasibatla UC San Diego, Arpan Agrawal University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Yuriy Brun University of Massachusetts, Sorin Lerner University of California at San Diego, Talia Lily Ringer University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Emily First Rutgers University DOI Pre-print | ||
14:15 15mTalk | RISE: Rule-Driven SQL Dialect Translation via Query Reduction Research Track Xudong Xie Institute of Software Chinese Academy of Sciences, China, Yuwei Zhang Institute of Software Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wensheng Dou Institute of Software Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yu Gao Institute of Software at Chinese Academy of Sciences; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ziyu Cui Institute of Software at Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jiansen Song Institute of Software at Chinese Academy of Sciences, Rui Yang Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jun Wei Institute of Software at Chinese Academy of Sciences; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences | ||
14:30 15mTalk | RepoScope: Leveraging Call Chain-Aware Multi-View Context for Repository-Level Code Generation Research Track Yang Liu , Li Zhang Beihang University, Fang Liu Beihang University, Zhuohang Wang Beihang University, Donglin Wei Beihang University, Zhishuo Yang Beihang University, Kechi Zhang Peking University, China, Jia Li , Lin Shi Beihang University Pre-print | ||
14:45 15mTalk | What to Retrieve for Effective Retrieval-Augmented Code Generation? An Empirical Study and Beyond Research Track Wenchao Gu Technical University of Munich, Juntao Chen Sun Yat-Sen University, Yanlin Wang Sun Yat-sen University, Tianyue Jiang Sun Yat-sen University, Xingzhe Li Sun Yat-Sen University, Mingwei Liu Sun Yat-Sen University, Xilin Liu Huawei Cloud, Yuchi Ma Huawei Cloud Computing Technologies, Zibin Zheng Sun Yat-sen University | ||
15:00 15mTalk | SEER: Enhancing Chain-of-Thought Code Generation through Self-Exploring Deep Reasoning Research Track Shuzheng Gao Chinese University of Hong Kong, Chaozheng Wang The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Cuiyun Gao Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, Michael Lyu The Chinese University of Hong Kong Media Attached | ||
15:15 15mTalk | SmartC2Rust: Iterative, Feedback-Driven C-to-Rust Translation via Large Language Models for Safety and Equivalence Research Track Momoko Shiraishi The University of Tokyo, Yinzhi Cao Johns Hopkins University, Takahiro Shinagawa The University of Tokyo | ||