Generating Rely-Guarantee Conditions with the Conditional-Writes Domain

2026-02-19

AI Summary

This work addresses the challenge of modular verification for concurrent programs by introducing a novel abstract domain called the conditional-writes domain, which automatically generates concise and effective rely-guarantee conditions. The approach requires only the specification of the conditions under which each thread writes to shared variables, from which it derives interference information suitable for modular reasoning. Grounded in abstract interpretation theory, the authors formally define two implementation strategies and construct a highly modular analysis framework that readily extends to other rely-guarantee structures. Experimental evaluation on benchmark programs demonstrates the method’s effectiveness and highlights its potential for producing precise, composable verification conditions.

Technology Category

• Constraint Satisfaction and Optimization: Satisfiability Modulo Theories
• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Diagnosis and Abductive Reasoning
• Reasoning under Uncertainty: Relational Probabilistic Models

Application Category

• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Vertical and domain-specific search
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Web data provenance, reliability, and authenticity
• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Algorithms and analysis for heterogeneous, signed, attributed, multi-relational, temporal, higher-order, and annotated Web-related graphs

Abstract

Abstract interpretation has been shown to be a promising technique for the thread-modular verification of concurrent programs. Central to this is the generation of interferences, in the form of rely-guarantee conditions, conforming to a user-chosen structure. In this work, we introduce one such structure called the conditional-writes domain, designed for programs where it suffices to establish only the conditions under which particular variables are written to by each thread. We formalise our analysis within a novel abstract interpretation framework that is highly modular and can be easily extended to capture other structures for rely-guarantee conditions. We formalise two versions of our approach and evaluate their implementations on a simple programming language.

Problem

• rely-guarantee
• concurrent programs
• thread-modular verification
• conditional-writes
• abstract interpretation

Innovation

• conditional-writes domain
• rely-guarantee conditions
• abstract interpretation
• thread-modular verification
• concurrent programs