Choir: An Open Protocol for Distributed Multi-Agent Autoformalization

2026-09-25

AI Summary

This study addresses the high computational costs and limited collaboration inherent in centralized architectures for AI-based formal verification by proposing the Choir protocol. This work pioneers a decentralized, open-source collaborative paradigm that decomposes formalization projects into independent tasks, enabling LLM-driven multi-agent coordination through GitHub repositories. Furthermore, it introduces a deterministic gating mechanism to automatically verify contributions, ensuring compatibility with mainstream proof assistants such as Lean 4, Isabelle, and Rocq. By establishing a modular, distributed formalization framework, this approach facilitates open participation, significantly lowers computational barriers, and enhances the efficiency of large-scale theorem proving.

Abstract

AI agents can now formalize entire textbooks and major theorems in proof assistants such as Lean, but current efforts are typically centralized: a single team runs all agents and bears the full computational cost. We introduce Choir, an open protocol for distributed formalization. Choir decomposes a project into tasks that can be completed by independent contributors, each running their own agent with their own LLM subscription, while coordinating entirely through the project's GitHub repository. To support open participation, every contribution is checked by a deterministic gate before merge. Choir supports Lean 4, Isabelle, and Rocq, and is open source and modular, allowing projects to replace individual components or extend the protocol.

Problem

• Distributed formalization
• Multi-agent collaboration
• Autoformalization
• Open protocol

Innovation

• Distributed Autoformalization
• Multi-Agent Systems
• Open Protocol
• Proof Assistants
• Modular Architecture