Sound validation of abstractions with unavailable or inconclusive implementations

Develop a method for validating dependency abstractions soundly when the original implementations are unavailable or verification is inconclusive.

Background

The proposed soundness guard validates abstractions by comparing them against the original dependency implementations. This validation strategy becomes problematic when implementations cannot be accessed or when the verification procedure cannot reach a conclusive result.

The authors identify dynamic analysis as a possible way to construct candidate abstractions in these situations, but explicitly state that establishing soundness remains unresolved.

References

First, validating dependency abstractions may be infeasible when implementations are unavailable or verification is inconclusive. Dynamic analysis could help construct candidate abstractions in such cases, although establishing soundness remains a challenge.

— Towards Agentic Proof Harness Engineering  (2610.23241 - Shanmuganathan et al., 16 Oct 2026) in Section 4, “Challenges of Proof-Harness Engineering”