# Runners in action

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.11629 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.11629/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 25 Oct 2019.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [On Reinforcement Learning, Effect Handlers, and the State Monad](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.15426/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Runners of algebraic effects, also known as comodels, provide a mathematical model of resource management. We show that they also give rise to a programming concept that models top-level external resources, as well as allows programmers to modularly define their own intermediate "virtual machines". We capture the core ideas of programming with runners in an equational calculus λ_mathsfcoop, which we equip with a sound and coherent denotational semantics that guarantees the linear use of resources and execution of finalisation code. We accompany λ_mathsfcoop with examples of runners in action, provide a prototype language implementation in OCaml, as well as a Haskell library based on λ_mathsfcoop.