A universe of propositions equipped with definitional proof irrelevance constitutes a convenient medium to express properties and proofs in type-theoretic proof assistants such as Lean, Rocq, and Agda. However, allowing accessibility predicates - used to establish semantic termination arguments - to inhabit such a universe yields undecidable typechecking, hampering the predictability and foundational bases of a proof assistant. To effectively reconcile definitional proof irrelevance and accessibility predicates with both theoretical foundations and practicality in mind, we describe a type theory that extends the Calculus of Inductive Constructions featuring observational equality in a universe of strict propositions, with two variants for handling the elimination principle of accessibility predicates: one variant safeguards decidability by sticking to propositional unfolding, and the other variant favors flexibility with definitional unfolding, at the expense of a potentially diverging typechecking procedure. Crucially, the metatheory of this dual approach establishes that any proof made in the definitional variant of the theory can be translated into a proof of the same statement in the propositional variant, all while preserving the decidability of the latter. Moreover, we prove the two variants to be consistent and to satisfy forms of canonicity, ensuring that programs can indeed be properly evaluated. We present an implementation in Rocq and compare it with existing approaches. Overall, this work introduces an effective technique that informs the design of proof assistants with strict propositions, enabling local computation with accessibility predicates without compromising the ambient type theory.

In the meta-theoretic study of dependent type theory, confluence techniques are powerful tools for establishing the properties required when proving correctness of implementations. Unfortunately, such techniques have historically mostly been studied for type theories with untyped conversion, which are harder to relate to semantics. In this work, we show how to scale confluence techniques to rich dependent type theories with typed conversion. To do this, we prove a confluence theorem for a theory featuring not only function types (without eta) and universes, but also some inductive types (Nat and sums), dependent pairs (without eta), definitional proof irrelevance and a lift type (with eta), allowing to simulate a weak form of explicit cumulativity (as done in Agda). We then show how to extend our framework with a definitionally proof-irrelevant equality in two ways, either with an observational equality or with an eliminator with a non-linear computation rule (as done in Lean), illustrating the extensibility of our approach. With confluence in hand, we then fulfill our promise of showing (partial) correctness of type- and conversion-checking algorithms. Moreover, while our specification for the type theory is fully annotated, which eases the connection with semantics, we prove correctness of algorithms that operate on usual non-annotated terms, an important optimization for real-life implementations. Finally, our results have been fully formalized in Rocq and can serve as a basis for future type theory formalizations.

Abstract Powerful confluence criteria for higher-order rewriting exist for left-linear systems, even in the presence of critical pairs and non-termination. On the other hand, confluence criteria that allow for mixing non-termination and non-left-linearity are either extremely limited or hardly usable in practice. In this paper, we study confluence criteria which explore sort information to make proving higher-order confluence possible, even in the presence of non-termination and non-left-linearity. We give many interesting examples of systems covered by our results, including a (confluent) variant of Klop’s counterexample, and a calculus issuing from a dependent type theory with cumulative universes.

Bidirectional typing is a discipline in which the typing judgment is decomposed explicitly into inference and checking modes, allowing one to control the flow of type information in typing rules and to specify algorithmically how they should be used. Bidirectional typing has been fruitfully studied and bidirectional systems have been developed for many type theories. However, the formal development of bidirectional typing has until now been kept confined to specific theories, with general guidelines remaining informal. In this work, we give a generic account of bidirectional typing for a general class of dependent type theories. This is done by first giving a general definition of bidirectional type theories, each giving rise to both a declarative and a bidirectional type system. We then show, in a theory-independent fashion, that the two systems are equivalent. Finally, we establish the decidability of bidirectional typing for normalizing theories, yielding a generic typing algorithm that has been implemented in a prototype and used in practice with many theories.

Abstract Bidirectional typing is a discipline in which the typing judgment is decomposed explicitly into inference and checking modes, allowing to control the flow of type information in typing rules and to specify algorithmically how they should be used. Bidirectional typing has been fruitfully studied and bidirectional systems have been developed for many type theories. However, the formal development of bidirectional typing has until now been kept confined to specific theories, with general guidelines remaining informal. In this work, we give a generic account of bidirectional typing for a general class of dependent type theories. This is done by first giving a general definition of type theories (or equivalently, a logical framework), for which we define declarative and bidirectional type systems. We then show, in a theory-independent fashion, that the two systems are equivalent. This equivalence is then explored to establish the decidability of typing for weak normalizing theories, yielding a generic type-checking algorithm that has been implemented in a prototype and used in practice with many theories.

Abstract We report on the implementation of a generic bidirectional algorithm for dependent type theories, following the proposal of the paper "Generic bidirectional typing for dependent type theories".

Proof assistants such as Coq implement a type theory featuring three important features: impredicativity, cumulativity and product covariance. This combination has proven difficult to be expressed in the logical framework Dedukti, and previous attempts have failed in providing an encoding that is proven confluent, sound and conservative. In this work we solve this longstanding open problem by providing an encoding of these three features that we prove to be confluent, sound and to satisfy a restricted (but, we argue, strong enough) form of conservativity. Our proof of confluence is a contribution by itself, and combines various criteria and proof techniques from rewriting theory. Our proof of soundness also contributes a new strategy in which the result is shown in terms of an inverse translation function, fixing a common flaw made in some previous encoding attempts.

As the development of formal proofs is a time-consuming task, it is important to devise ways of sharing the already written proofs to prevent wasting time redoing them. One of the challenges in this domain is to translate proofs written in proof assistants based on impredicative logics to proof assistants based on predicative logics, whenever impredicativity is not used in an essential way. In this paper we present a transformation for sharing proofs with a core predicative system supporting prenex universe polymorphism. It consists in trying to elaborate each term into a predicative universe-polymorphic term as general as possible. The use of universe polymorphism is justified by the fact that mapping each universe to a fixed one in the target theory is not sufficient in most cases. During the elaboration, we need to solve unification problems in the equational theory of universe levels. In order to do this, we give a complete characterization of when a single equation admits a most general unifier. This characterization is then employed in a partial algorithm which uses a constraint-postponement strategy for trying to solve unification problems. The proposed translation is of course partial, but in practice allows one to translate many proofs that do not use impredicativity in an essential way. Indeed, it was implemented in the tool Predicativize and then used to translate semi-automatically many non-trivial developments from Matita's library to Agda, including proofs of Bertrand's Postulate and Fermat's Little Theorem, which (as far as we know) were not available in Agda yet.

As the development of formal proofs is a time-consuming task, it is important to devise ways of sharing the already written proofs to prevent wasting time redoing them. One of the challenges in this domain is to translate proofs written in proof assistants based on impredicative logics, such as Coq, Matita and the HOL family, to proof assistants based on predicative logics like Agda, whenever impredicativity is not used in an essential way. In this paper we present an algorithm to do such a translation between a core impredicative type system and a core predicative one allowing prenex universe polymorphism like in Agda. It consists in trying to turn a potentially impredicative term into a universe polymorphic term as general as possible. The use of universe polymorphism is justified by the fact that mapping an impredicative universe to a fixed predicative one is not sufficient in most cases. During the algorithm, we need to solve unification problems modulo the max-successor algebra on universe levels. But, in this algebra, there are solvable problems having no most general solution. We however provide an incomplete algorithm whose solutions, when it succeeds, are most general ones. The proposed translation is of course partial, but in practice allows one to translate many proofs that do not use impredicativity in an essential way. Indeed, it was implemented in the tool Predicativize and then used to translate semi-automatically many non-trivial developments from Matita's arithmetic library to Agda, including Bertrand's Postulate and Fermat's Little Theorem, which were not available in Agda yet.

Dedukti is a very expressive logical framework which unlike most frameworks, such as the Edinburgh Logical Framework (LF), allows for the representation of computation alongside deduction. However, unlike LF encodings, Dedukti encodings proposed until now do not feature an adequacy theorem - i.e., a bijection between terms in the encoded system and in its encoding. Moreover, many of them also do not have a conservativity result, which compromises the ability of Dedukti to check proofs written in such encodings. We propose a different approach for Dedukti encodings which do not only allow for simpler conservativity proofs, but which also restore the adequacy of encodings. More precisely, we propose in this work adequate (and thus conservative) encodings for Functional Pure Type Systems. However, in contrast with LF encodings, ours is computational - that is, represents computation directly as computation. Therefore, our work is the first to present and prove correct an approach allowing for encodings that are both adequate and computational in Dedukti.