A graphical user interface framework for formal verification

Abstract

We present the "ProofWidgets"framework for implementing general user interfaces (UIs) within an interactive theorem prover. The framework uses web technology and functional reactive programming, as well as metaprogramming features of advanced interactive theorem proving (ITP) systems to allow users to create arbitrary interactive UIs for representing the goal state. Users of the framework can create GUIs declaratively within the ITP's metaprogramming language, without having to develop in multiple languages and without coordinated changes across multiple projects, which improves development time for new designs of UI. The ProofWidgets framework also allows UIs to make use of the full context of the theorem prover and the specialised libraries that ITPs offer, such as methods for dealing with expressions and tactics. The framework includes an extensible structured pretty-printing engine that enables advanced interaction with expressions such as interactive term rewriting. We exemplify the framework with an implementation for the leanprover-community fork of Lean 3. The framework is already in use by hundreds of contributors to the Lean mathematical library.