Abstract We revisit the famous notion of sheaves through the lens of type theory and side-effects. Using the language of $$\textsf{MLTT}$$ MLTT , we show that they inductively approximate idealized functional objects as decision trees, realizing a generalized form of continuity. We materialize this intuition in $$\textsf{MLTT}^{\textsf{F}}$$ MLTT F , a case-study sheaf extension of $$\textsf{MLTT}$$ MLTT with a Cohen real and leverage it to show uniform continuity of all $$\textsf{MLTT}$$ MLTT functionals of type $$({\mathbb {N}}\rightarrow {\mathbb {B}}) \rightarrow {\mathbb {N}}$$ ( N → B ) → N . The latter results were mechanized in Rocq.

The axiom of choice (AC) states that every total relation contains a function. It enjoys a pivotal role in both classical and constructive dialects of mathematics. In the former, it is seen as a useful closure property invoked especially in set-theoretic contexts, in the latter it is seen either as a tautology, following from a constructive reading of totality proofs, or as a taboo, as by an extensional reading of totality proofs it enforces full classical logic. It has therefore been debated how much of AC should be accepted in constructive foundations and authors like Richman argued for "Constructive mathematics without choice" where even countable choice, not immediately jeopardising constructive reasoning, is avoided. With this paper, we propose a continuation of Richman’s programme of more radical extent and systematically study constructive foundations absent of countable, unique, or quantifier-free choice principles as well as the spurious fragments of (the actual) AC in form of extensionality principles: "Constructive mathematics without any choice" We argue that such a minimalistic setting is advantageous, for instance for studies in constructive reverse mathematics and synthetic computability theory. Apart from these programmatic considerations and a careful encyclopedia of choice principles, we revisit and refine several results from the literature: We show that already the partition principle (a consequence of AC of unknown strength) implies the excluded middle, that already logically decidable (inductive) equality of propositions implies proof irrelevance, and that function inversion principles such as the Cantor-Bernstein theorem not only rely on the excluded middle but also on unique choice. To the best of our knowledge, the latter is the first reverse mathematics result regarding the full axiom of unique choice, enabled by our minimal setting. Implementing such a minimalistic foundation, the proofs of all our results have been mechanised with the Rocq prover.

Continuity principles stating that all functions are continuous play a central role in some schools of constructive mathematics. However, there are different ways to formalise the property of being continuous in constructive foundations. We analyse these continuity properties from the perspective of constructive reverse mathematics. We work in constructive type theory, which can be seen as a minimal foundation for constructive reverse mathematics. We treat continuity of functions F : (Q → A) → R, i.e. with question type Q, answer type A, and result type R. Concretely, we discuss continuity defined via moduli, making the relevant list L : LQ of questions explicit, dialogue trees, making the question-answer process explicit as inductive tree, and tree functions, making the question-answer process explicit as function. We prove equivalences where possible and isolate necessary and sufficient axioms for equivalence proofs. Many of the results we discuss are already present in the works of Hancock, Pattinson, Ghani, Kawai, Fujiwara, Brede, Herbelin, Escardó, and others. Our main contribution is their formulation over a uniform foundation, the observation that no choice axioms are necessary, the generalisation to arbitrary types from natural numbers where possible, and a mechanisation in the Coq/Rocq proof assistant.

Proof assistants based on dependent type theory, such as Coq, Lean and Agda, use different universes to classify types, typically combining a predicative hierarchy of universes for computationally-relevant types, and an impredicative universe of proof-irrelevant propositions. In general, a universe is characterized by its sort, such as Type or Prop, and its level, in the case of a predicative sort. Recent research has also highlighted the potential of introducing more sorts in the type theory of the proof assistant as a structuring means to address the coexistence of different logical or computational principles, such as univalence, exceptions, or definitional proof irrelevance. This diversity raises concrete and subtle issues from both theoretical and practical perspectives. In particular, in order to avoid duplicating definitions to inhabit all (combinations of) universes, some sort of polymorphism is needed. Universe level polymorphism is well-known and effective to deal with hierarchies, but the handling of polymorphism between sorts is currently ad hoc and limited in all major proof assistants, hampering reuse and extensibility. This work develops sort polymorphism and its metatheory, studying in particular monomorphization, large elimination, and parametricity. We implement sort polymorphism in Coq and present examples from a new sort-polymorphic prelude of basic definitions and automation. Sort polymorphism is a natural solution that effectively addresses the limitations of current approaches and prepares the ground for future multi-sorted type theories.

We present an extensive mechanization of the metatheory of Martin-Löf Type Theory (MLTT) in the Coq proof assistant. Our development builds on pre-existing work in Agda to show not only the decidability of conversion, but also the decidability of type checking, using an approach guided by bidirectional type checking. From our proof of decidability, we obtain a certified and executable type checker for a full-fledged version of MLTT with support for Π, Σ, ℕ, and Id types, and one universe. Our development does not rely on impredicativity, induction-recursion or any axiom beyond MLTT extended with indexed inductive types and a handful of predicative universes, thus narrowing the gap between the object theory and the metatheory to a mere difference in universes. Furthermore, our formalization choices are geared towards a modular development that relies on Coq's features, e.g. universe polymorphism and metaprogramming with tactics.

Automatic Differentiation is the study of the efficient computation of differentials. While the first automatic differentiation algorithms are concomitant with the birth of computer science, the specific backpropagation algorithm has been brought to a modern light by its application to neural networks. This work unveils a surprising connection between backpropagation and Gödel's Dialectica interpretation, a logical translation that realizes semi-classical axioms. This unexpected correspondence is exploited through different logical settings. In particular, we show that the computational interpretation of Dialectica translates to the differential λ-calculus and that Differential Linear Logic subsumes the logical interpretation of Dialectica.

The internal Church thesis (CT) is a logical principle stating that one can associate to any function f : N → N a concrete code, in some Turing-complete language, that computes f. While the compatibility of CT in simpler systems has been long known, its compatibility with dependent type theory is still an open question.

The results from this paper are twofold. First, we give a purely syntactic presheaf model of CIC. Contrarily to similar endeavours, this variant both preserves conversion and interprets full dependent elimination.

There is a critical tension between substitution, dependent elimination and effects in type theory. In this paper, we crystallize this tension in the form of a no-go theorem that constitutes the fire triangle of type theory. To release this tension, we propose ∂CBPV, an extension of call-by-push-value (CBPV) —a general calculus of effects—to dependent types. Then, by extending to ∂CBPV the well-known decompositions of call-by-name and call-by-value into CBPV, we show why, in presence of effects, dependent elimination must be restricted in call-by-name, and substitution must be restricted in call-by-value. To justify ∂CBPV and show that it is general enough to interpret many kinds of effects, we define various effectful syntactic translations from ∂CBPV to Martin-Löf type theory: the reader, weaning and forcing translations.

Traditional approaches to compensate for the lack of exceptions in type theories for proof assistants have severe drawbacks from both a programming and a reasoning perspective. Pédrot and Tabareau recently extended the Calculus of Inductive Constructions (CIC) with exceptions. The new exceptional type theory is interpreted by a translation into CIC, covering full dependent elimination, decidable type-checking and canonicity. However, the exceptional theory is inconsistent as a logical system. To recover consistency, Pédrot and Tabareau propose an additional translation that uses parametricity to enforce that all exceptions are caught locally. While this enforcement brings logical expressivity gains over CIC, it completely prevents reasoning about exceptional programs such as partial functions. This work addresses the dilemma between exceptions and consistency in a more flexible manner, with the Reasonably Exceptional Type Theory (RETT). RETT is structured in three layers: (a) the exceptional layer, in which all terms can raise exceptions; (b) the mediation layer, in which exceptional terms must be provably parametric; (c) the pure layer, in which terms are non-exceptional, but can refer to exceptional terms. We present the general theory of RETT, where each layer is realized by a predicative hierarchy of universes, and develop an instance of RETT in Coq: the impure layer corresponds to the predicative universe hierarchy, the pure layer is realized by the impredicative universe of propositions, and the mediation layer is reified via a parametricity type class. RETT is the first full dependent type theory to support consistent reasoning about exceptional terms, and the CoqRETT plugin readily brings this ability to Coq programmers.

We define the exceptional translation, a syntactic translation of the Calculus of Inductive Constructions (CIC) into itself, that covers full dependent elimination. The new resulting type theory features call-by-name exceptions with decidable type-checking and canonicity, but at the price of inconsistency. Then, noticing parametricity amounts to Kreisel’s realizability in this setting, we provide an additional layer on top of the exceptional translation in order to tame exceptions and ensure that all exceptions used locally are caught, leading to the parametric exceptional translation which fully preserves consistency. This way, we can consistently extend the logical expressivity of CIC with independence of premises, Markov’s rule, and the negation of function extensionality while retaining $$\eta $$ -expansion. As a byproduct, we also show that Markov’s principle is not provable in CIC. Both translations have been implemented in a Coq plugin, which we use to formalize the examples.

A family of syntactic models for the calculus of construction with universes (CCω) is described, all of them preserving conversion of the calculus definitionally, and thus giving rise directly to a program transformation of CCω into itself.

We define a monadic translation of type theory, called the weaning translation, that allows for a large range of effects in dependent type theory-such as exceptions, non-termination, non-determinism or writing operations. Through the light of a call-by-push-value decomposition, we explain why the traditional approach fails with type dependency and justify our approach. Crucially, the construction requires that the universe of algebras of the monad forms itself an algebra. The weaning translation applies to a version of the Calculus of Inductive Constructions (CIC) with a restricted version of dependent elimination. Finally, we show how to recover a translation of full CIC by mixing parametricity techniques with the weaning translation. This provides the first effectful version of CIC.

This paper studies forcing translations of proofs in dependent type theory, through the Curry-Howard correspondence. Based on a call-by-push-value decomposition, we synthesize two simply-typed translations: i) one call-by-value, corresponding to the translation derived from the presheaf construction as studied in a previous paper; ii) one call-by-name, whose intuitions already appear in Krivine and Miquel's work. Focusing on the call-by-name translation, we adapt it to the dependent case and prove that it is compatible with the definitional equality of our system, thus avoiding coherence problems. This allows us to use any category as forcing conditions, which is out of reach with the call-by-value translation. Our construction also exploits the notion of storage operators in order to interpret dependent elimination for inductive types. This is a novel example of a dependent theory with side-effects, clarifying how dependent elimination for inductive types must be restricted in a non-pure setting. Being implemented as a Coq plugin, this work gives the possibility to formalize easily consistency results, for instance the consistency of the negation of Voevodsky's univalence axiom.