mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

GenOS: Compositional Certificates for Semantic Robustness in AI Code Generation

arXiv 2608.03588 ↗First posted 4 Aug 2026cs.PL cs.AI cs.SEcited by 0

On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Software engineering coding agents

Abstract (arXiv)

AI coding agents are stochastic workflows: prompts are interpreted, artifacts are sampled, validators produce observations, and orchestrators commit or repair. Small prompt or specification changes can therefore alter program-behavior distributions even when the texts appear synonymous. Existing systems evaluate correctness, but lack a compositional criterion for safely replacing a prompt, contract, generator, or program inside a complete agentic workflow. We introduce GenOS, a probabilistic operational semantics for this replacement problem. Each layer is modeled as a Markov kernel, and each interface carries an observer-relative equivalence. We prove that equivalence-compatible kernels descend to quotient classes and that quotienting commutes with distributional extension and sequential composition. Hence, equivalent prompts induce equal probabilities for all downstream equivalence-closed events, including verified commit. We also establish workflow bisimulation, guarded-commit safety under sound validation, total-variation non-expansiveness, and an additive robustness bound that attributes approximation error to individual pipeline layers. An executable insertion-sort audit instantiates the theory with natural-language paraphrases, a formal contract, six programs, two observers, and exhaustive execution on 121 inputs. Equivalent prompts yield identical code-class and commit distributions; a prompt assigning 5% probability to an in-place contract is distinguished by a mutation observer, while downstream distances remain within the predicted bound. Across 20,000 randomized finite-kernel trials, no exact or approximate law is violated. GenOS is model-parametric: compatibility is a measurable property to test, not an assumption about language-model behavior.

Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Software engineering coding agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 8 of its 17 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 4 Aug 2026.

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8 of 17 references.

References · 8

  1. 2021Evaluating Large Language Models Trained on Codecited by 8,053
  2. 2021Program Synthesis with Large Language Modelscited by 3,509
  3. 2023Is Your Code Generated by ChatGPT Really Correct? Rigorous Evaluation of Large Language Models for Code Generationcited by 1,332
  4. 2022Prompting Is Programming: A Query Language for Large Language Modelscited by 110
  5. 2021Jigsaw: Large Language Models meet Program Synthesiscited by 103
  6. 2023Clover: Closed-Loop Verifiable Code Generationcited by 62
  7. 2024Enchanting Program Specification Synthesis by Large Language Models using Static Analysis and Program Verificationcited by 55
  8. 2024VeCoGen: Automating Generation of Formally Verified C Code with Large Language Modelscited by 10

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