| --- |
| license: mit |
| task_categories: |
| - text-classification |
| tags: |
| - formal-methods |
| - model-checking |
| - verification |
| - reasoning |
| - synthetic |
| size_categories: |
| - n<1K |
| configs: |
| - config_name: medium |
| data_files: specforge_medium.jsonl |
| default: true |
| - config_name: easy |
| data_files: specforge_easy.jsonl |
| - config_name: hard |
| data_files: specforge_hard.jsonl |
| --- |
| |
| # specforge — a verification benchmark that cannot be memorised |
|
|
| 600 protocol-shaped state machines whose ground truth was **computed by an exhaustive model checker**, |
| not written down by hand. |
|
|
| Every fixed benchmark has a shelf life: once its answers are in a training corpus, a high score stops |
| telling you whether a model reasons or remembers. This snapshot is generated, and the generator is |
| public — so when this set ages, you make a new one with a different seed rather than trusting a stale |
| number. |
|
|
| ```python |
| from datasets import load_dataset |
| |
| ds = load_dataset("nickh007/specforge", split="train") # medium by default |
| ds[0]["spec"] # the state machine |
| ds[0]["violated"] # ground truth, computed not assumed |
| ``` |
|
|
| ## Configs |
|
|
| | config | rows | violated | safe | |
| |---|---|---|---| |
| | `easy` | 150 | 75 | 75 | |
| | `medium` *(default)* | 300 | 150 | 150 | |
| | `hard` | 150 | 75 | 75 | |
|
|
| Difficulty controls the **size of the search**, not how tricky the answer is: more components, more |
| auxiliary fields, wider bounds. |
|
|
| ## Fields |
|
|
| | field | meaning | |
| |---|---| |
| | `id` | `{shape}_{difficulty}_{seed}` | |
| | `shape` | one of `mutual_exclusion`, `bounded_retry`, `handshake`, `sequence_window`, `resource_pool` | |
| | `difficulty` | `easy`, `medium`, `hard` | |
| | `seed` | the generation seed for this task | |
| | `spec` | the declarative state machine (JSON) | |
| | `property` | the name of the safety property being checked | |
| | `violated` | **ground truth** — computed by exhaustive check | |
| | `reachable_states` | size of the reachable state space | |
| | `counterexample_length` | steps to the violation, when there is one | |
|
|
| Plus per-shape metadata, present only on the shapes that define them and `null` elsewhere (the |
| configs are a union of all five shapes): `guarded`, `components`, `limit`, `capped`, `ordered`, |
| `width`, `checked`, `size`. These record **which variant was generated** — e.g. `guarded: false` on |
| a `mutual_exclusion` task is why that task is violated. 17 columns in total. |
|
|
| ## Why the answer key is trustworthy |
|
|
| Three rules, enforced at generation time and covered by tests in the |
| [generator](https://github.com/nickharris808/specforge): |
|
|
| 1. **A task is emitted only on a definite verdict.** A candidate the checker could not settle is |
| discarded, never labelled. An answer key containing guesses is worse than no benchmark. |
| 2. **Every violated task's counterexample was replayed** against its own model before the task was |
| emitted. |
| 3. **Generation is deterministic from the seed**, so this exact set is reproducible: |
| `specforge export --n 300 --seed 2026 --difficulty medium`. |
|
|
| One subtlety worth stating: a **safe** label requires an exhaustive search, because it is a claim |
| about every reachable state. A **violated** label does not, because it rests on a single witness that |
| stands whether or not the search finished. Different evidential bars, applied separately. |
|
|
| ## Scoring credits only what replays |
|
|
| Predicting "violated" is cheap; producing a counterexample that replays is not. Scoring a submission |
| needs the [`specforge`](https://github.com/nickharris808/specforge) package, because a trace only |
| means something when replayed against the real model. |
|
|
| ```bash |
| pip install "specforge @ git+https://github.com/nickharris808/specforge.git" |
| specforge score submission.json --tasks tasks.json |
| ``` |
|
|
| Measured on 20 tasks at seed 42: a submission that knows every answer and **fabricates every trace** |
| scores **balanced accuracy 0.500** — exactly what guessing scores — while `accuracy_ignoring_replay` |
| reads **1.000**. The gap between those two numbers is the measurement. |
|
|
| ## Honest scope |
|
|
| **What a score measures.** How well a solver finds and *demonstrates* safety violations in synthetic |
| finite state machines, at a given size. |
|
|
| **What it does not.** Nothing about real-world protocol implementations — the shapes are drawn from |
| how protocols are built, but the machines are synthetic and deliberately so. Nothing about reading a |
| specification, since the model is given. And nothing comparable across seeds or difficulties unless |
| you say which you used. |
|
|
| **It makes no claim about any named third-party protocol, product or implementation.** Judgements |
| about named systems belong in a human-reviewed corpus; that is |
| [`protocol-bench`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/nickh007/protocol-bench), which is fixed, small |
| and reviewed. |
|
|
| Always report the **seed and count** with any score. A number nobody can reproduce is not a result. |
|
|
| ## Licence |
|
|
| MIT. |
|
|
| --- |
|
|
| ## The portfolio |
|
|
| This is one artifact in a set built around a single rule: **a verdict you cannot check is not a |
| verdict** — and its corollary, *undetermined is not a pass.* |
|
|
| | | | |
| |---|---| |
| | [**Documentation**](https://nickharris808.github.io/verification-docs/) | the front door: what an explicit-state check proves, and what it does not | |
| | [`minicheck`](https://github.com/nickharris808/minicheck) | the model checker underneath all of it | |
| | [`protocol-bench`](https://github.com/nickharris808/protocol-bench) | fixed ground truth from published standards; a detection must replay | |
| | [`specforge`](https://github.com/nickharris808/specforge) | a benchmark that cannot be memorised — ground truth is computed | |
| | [`minicheck-mcp`](https://github.com/nickharris808/minicheck-mcp) | the checker as an MCP server, for agents | |
| | [`failclosed`](https://github.com/nickharris808/failclosed) | default-deny middleware for verification-gated endpoints | |
| | [`polyfrac`](https://github.com/nickharris808/polyfrac) | exact rational arithmetic with Sturm root counting | |
|
|
| **Try it in the browser** · [model-check a state machine](https://huggingface.co/spaces/nickh007/protocol-bench-demo) · [the specforge leaderboard](https://huggingface.co/spaces/nickh007/specforge-leaderboard) |
|
|
| **Ground-truth data** · [protocol-bench](https://huggingface.co/datasets/nickh007/protocol-bench) · [specforge](https://huggingface.co/datasets/nickh007/specforge) |
|
|
