mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

TraceFix: Repairing Agent Coordination Protocols with TLA+ Counterexamples

arXiv 2605.07935 ↗First posted 8 May 2026cs.AI cs.MAcited by 0

On the map: LLM agents and tool use → General LLM agent frameworks and benchmarks

Abstract (arXiv)

We present TraceFix, a verification-first pipeline for Large Language Model (LLM) multi-agent coordination. An agent synthesizes a protocol topology as a structured intermediate representation (IR) from a task description, generates PlusCal coordination logic, and iteratively repairs the protocol using counterexamples from the TLA+ model checker (TLC) until verification succeeds. Verified process bodies are compiled into per-agent system prompts and executed under a runtime monitor that rejects out-of-topology coordination operations. On 48 tasks spanning 16 scenario families, all tasks reach full TLC verification; 62.5% pass on the first attempt and none requires more than four repair iterations. State spaces span six orders of magnitude yet verification completes in under 60 s for every task. A 3,456-run runtime comparison shows that topology-monitored execution achieves the highest task completion (89.4% average, 81.5% full) and that runtimes using the verified protocol degrade at roughly half the rate of prompt-only and chat-only baselines when model capability is reduced. A paired ablation under a fixed runtime shows that TLC-verified protocols cut deadlock/livelock (DL/LL) from 31.1% to 14.1%, with the largest separation under fault injection.

Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in General LLM agent frameworks and benchmarks, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 18 of its 40 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 8 May 2026.

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18 of 40 references.

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  9. 2025Optimizing Model Selection for Compound AI Systemscited by 36
  10. 2025RvLLM: LLM Runtime Verification with Domain Knowledgecited by 17
  11. 2025AgentGuard: Runtime Verification of AI Agentscited by 17
  12. 2026VERGE: Formal Refinement and Guidance Engine for Verifiable LLM Reasoningcited by 12
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  1. 2019Online Synthesis for Runtime Enforcement of Safety in Multi-Agent Systemscited by 3
  2. 2025SysMoBench: Evaluating AI on Formally Modeling Complex Real-World Systemscited by 2
  3. 2015Automatic Completion of Distributed Protocols with Symmetrycited by 1
  4. 2024Efficient Synthesis of Symbolic Distributed Protocols by Sketchingcited by 1
  5. 2026ModelWisdom: An Integrated Toolkit for TLA+ Model Visualization, Digest and Repaircited by 1

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