Proof Repair and (Co)algebra Equivalences

Abstract

Maintaining formal proofs in response to breaking changes in their dependencies is a major challenge of proof engineering. Proof repair is a kind of proof automation that lessens the burden of this challenge by automatically adapting proofs in response to those changes. While proof repair is well understood through an algorithmic lens, it has, until now, been poorly understood through a theoretical lens. We address this gap by giving the first foundational treatment of proof repair, focusing in particular on type-theoretic proof repair in response to changes in datatypes. Our key insight is that the core component of a proof repair algorithm---a ``configuration''---is exactly an algebra isomorphism. We formalize and prove this insight, answering open questions from prior work. We then take this one step further and show that, by taking the dual of this representation, we obtain proof repair over coinductive types. All of our results are formalized in Agda.