Horizonprover

Horizonprover is a software system for formal proof construction and verification. It blends interactive proof development with automated reasoning to support mathematical proofs and software verification. The project centers on a horizon-guided search strategy, where a user-specified horizon constrains search depth or resources, enabling scalable exploration of large proof trees.

Architecture: Horizonprover has a kernel that maintains proof state and ensures soundness, an automation layer for tactic-based search, and a horizon manager that adapts strategy across branches. It supports higher-order logic and dependent types, and exposes a tactic language. It can integrate external solvers via a plugin API and supports parallel search.

History and development: The project emerged from a research initiative to blend human-guided proof development with automated search, with emphasis on extensibility and interoperability. It has been released as an open-source platform and aims to complement existing proof systems.

Usage and applications: Horizonprover is used in formal-methods research, verification of complex software, and education. Users can write interactive proofs, run automated searches within horizons, or combine both approaches.

Reception: Early assessments note the horizon-based approach as a novel way to balance guidance and automation. Critics point to tooling maturity and documentation as areas for improvement.

See also: interactive theorem proving, automated theorem proving, formal verification.