# Synthesis of Temporal Causality

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.10912 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.10912/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 17 May 2024.

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [LMT: A Bayesian Framework for Causal Discovery from Textual Alarm Records in Manufacturing Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.09892/) (2026)
- [Sample-Efficient Learning of Probabilistic Causes for Reachability in Markov Decision Processes with Probabilistic Guarantees](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.29681/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We present an automata-based algorithm to synthesize omega-regular causes for omega-regular effects on executions of a reactive system, such as counterexamples uncovered by a model checker. Our theory is a generalization of temporal causality, which has recently been proposed as a framework for drawing causal relationships between trace properties on a given trace. So far, algorithms exist only for verifying a single causal relationship and, as an extension, cause synthesis through enumeration, which is complete only for a small fragment of effect properties. This work presents the first complete cause-synthesis algorithm for the class of omega-regular effects. We show that in this case, causes are guaranteed to be omega-regular themselves and can be computed as, e.g., nondeterministic B"uchi automata. We demonstrate the practical feasibility of this algorithm with a prototype tool and evaluate its performance for cause synthesis and cause checking.