RustyDL: A Program Logic for Rust

2026-02-25

AI Summary

This work addresses the challenge of verifying complex functional properties of Rust programs arising from its ownership and borrowing mechanisms, which existing source-level program logics struggle to handle effectively in human–machine collaborative verification. To this end, we propose RustyDL—the first source-level program logic specifically designed for Rust—that enables automated, interactive deductive verification directly on Rust source code, thereby avoiding the need for intermediate language translation. RustyDL incorporates dedicated inference rules that leverage Rust’s type system features and is integrated into the KeY verification framework. A prototype implementation demonstrates the feasibility and practicality of our approach in reasoning about intricate properties of Rust programs.

Technology Category

• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Description Logics
• Constraint Satisfaction and Optimization: Satisfiability Modulo Theories
• Machine Learning: Statistical Relational/Logic Learning

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Applied ML and AI for Web-based mobile applications
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Cost models of using LLMs in production systems
• Responsible Web: Data and user privacy-enhancing technologies for the Web

Abstract

Rust is a modern programming language that guarantees memory safety and the absence of data races with a strong type system. We present RustyDL, a program logic for Rust, as a foundation for an auto-interactive, deductive verification tool for Rust. RustyDL reasons about Rust programs directly on the source code level, in contrast to other tools that are all based on translation to an intermediate language. A source-level program logic for Rust is crucial for a human-in-the-loop (HIL) style of verification that permits proving highly complex functional properties. We discuss specific Rust challenges in designing a program logic and calculus for HIL-style verification and propose a solution in each case. We provide a proof-of-concept of our ideas in the form of a prototype of a Rust instance of the deductive verification tool KeY.

Problem

• program logic
• Rust
• deductive verification
• source-level reasoning
• human-in-the-loop verification

Innovation

• program logic
• Rust
• deductive verification
• source-level reasoning
• human-in-the-loop