--- 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)