Analyzing the Narration Gap in LLM-Solver Loops
On the map: LLM reasoning → Reasoning benchmarks and evaluation
Abstract (arXiv)
Formal tools such as SAT and SMT solvers are increasingly embedded in language model reasoning pipelines when a safety or security critical question can be formulated in logic. Unlike chain of thought whose steps are sampled from the model distribution without formal guarantee, a solver produces a sound and independently verifiable answer. However, the soundness guarantee can be lost in the interaction between the solver and the model. The hybrid pipeline has three components: formalizing the question, deciding it, and narrating the result. Prior work has studied the formalization and decision, but not narration, which is the step that turns a formal tool's output into the user answer. To fill the narration gap, we first model the LLM-solver loop as a verified decision procedure. We further evaluate five open-sourced models under prompt injection, and we find certificate gating makes the solver verdict sound, while an adversary can invert a verified conclusion across phrasings and channels. We study the mitigation through hardened prompt that reduces injection significantly but cannot eliminate it and still suffers under adaptive attack. Combining the formal analysis and empirical studies, we show in the LLM-solver loop, robustness does not reach to the answer that the user finally reads.
Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Reasoning benchmarks and evaluation, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 33 of its 45 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 17 Jun 2026.
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33 of 45 references.
Closest ancestors · 4
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- 2023Logic-LM: Empowering Large Language Models with Symbolic Solvers for Faithful Logical Reasoning20 May
- 2023SatLM: Satisfiability-Aided Language Models Using Declarative Prompting16 May
Other references · 29
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- 2023Language Models Don't Always Say What They Think: Unfaithful Explanations in Chain-of-Thought Promptingcited by 1,122
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- 2023Measuring Faithfulness in Chain-of-Thought Reasoningcited by 703
- 2024InjecAgent: Benchmarking Indirect Prompt Injections in Tool-Integrated Large Language Model Agentscited by 538
- 2023LeanDojo: Theorem Proving with Retrieval-Augmented Language Modelscited by 427
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- 2023Ranking LLM-Generated Loop Invariants for Program Verificationcited by 33
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- 2025Evaluating Autoformalization Robustness via Semantically Similar Paraphrasingcited by 6
- 2026Verus-SpecGym: An Agentic Environment for Evaluating Specification Autoformalizationcited by 3
- 2019Adventures in Monitorability: From Branching to Linear Time and Back Againcited by 2
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