Towards Usable Program Verifiers

Code deficiencies and bugs constitute an unavoidable part of software systems. In safety-critical systems, like aircrafts or medical equipment, even a single bug can lead to catastrophic impacts such as injuries or death. Formal verification can be used to statically track code deficiencies by proving or disproving correctness properties of a system. However, at its current state formal verification is a cumbersome process that is rarely used by mainstream developers. The goal of my research is to build usable formal verifiers. A usable verifier naturally integrates the specification of correctness properties in the development process. Moreover, verification should be automatic, requiring no explicit proofs or complicated annotations. At the same time, the specification language should be expressive, allowing the user to write arbitrary correctness properties. Error reporting and diagnosis should provide insightful error messages and potential fixes any time verification fails. Finally, a usable verifier should be tested in real-world programs.