Formal Verification of Proofs from Automated Theorem Provers for Higher-Order Logic

21 pages•Published: October 23, 2026

Melanie Taprogge, Frédéric Blanqui and Alexander Steen

Abstract

We identify common challenges and requirements for verifying proofs of automated theorem provers in the Dedukti logical framework, and develop a general methodology for deriving encodings of calculus rules and proof steps, including clausification. We then apply this methodology to a large part of the calculus EP for higher-order logic, and integrate it into the automated theorem prover Leo-III, making it the first automated theorem prover for higher-order logic whose proofs can be independently checked and reused across systems. This uncovered and fixed several bugs in Leo-III.

Keyphrases: automated theorem proving, higher order logic, proof verification

In: Erika Ábrahám, Nikolaj Bjørner and Michael Rawson (editors). Proceedings of the 26th Conference on Logic for Programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Reasoning, vol 112, pages 217-237.

Links:	https://easychair.org/publications/paper/vTck
	https://doi.org/10.29007/brmk

BibTeX entry

@inproceedings{LPAR-26:Formal_Verification_Proofs_from,
  author    = {Melanie Taprogge and Frédéric Blanqui and Alexander Steen},
  title     = {Formal Verification of Proofs from Automated Theorem Provers for Higher-Order Logic},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 26th Conference on Logic for Programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Reasoning},
  editor    = {Erika Ábrahám and Nikolaj Bjørner and Michael Rawson},
  series    = {EPiC Series in Computing},
  volume    = {112},
  publisher = {EasyChair},
  bibsource = {EasyChair, https://easychair.org},
  issn      = {2398-7340},
  url       = {/publications/paper/vTck},
  doi       = {10.29007/brmk},
  pages     = {217-237},
  year      = {2026}}

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