mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Cost-Efficient Theorem Proving via Agent Orchestration in Program Verification

arXiv 2610.09681 ↗First posted 7 Oct 2026cs.AI cs.LO cs.PLcited by 0

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

Abstract (arXiv)

Program verification establishes software correctness through machine-checkable proofs constructed in theorem provers. It's a guarantee especially valuable for code generated by large language models (LLMs), which is fluent but carries no assurance of correctness. Almost all existing provers, however, pursue pass rates alone at whatever sampling or search budget it takes, and overlook the success-vs-cost frontier; yet real software often carries hundreds of interdependent proof obligations, so what matters at scale is not whether one theorem can be proved, but how many can be proved economically. We introduce CoCo-Prover, which formalizes cost-efficient program proving as metalevel decision-making under cost, grounded on two-level proof graphs: an AND/OR proof hypergraph within each declaration is joined to a lemma-dependency graph across declarations; and at each step, it answers two questions: which open goals to select, and which actions to purchase on these goals. Selection stays symbolic as a topological pass over the proof graphs. Action choice is agent orchestration via metalevel decision-making: an agentic router treats every bounded specialist invocation as a separately priced, best-effort computation, matching heterogeneous specialist agents together with configurations, under evolved routing rules as evidence accumulates. On five program verification benchmarks in Lean 4 including function-level CLEVER, VERINA, and AlgoVeri, and repository-level NTP4VC and Vero, we show that CoCo-Prover achieves a better success-vs-cost frontier than baselines including frontier coding agents and state-of-the-art LLM-based provers: it achieves the best solve rate on every benchmark and up to 100% on two benchmarks. It also reduces cost by up to 30.9% compared to the strongest baseline with the strongest LLM in our evaluation.

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 30 of its 59 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 7 Oct 2026.

Builds on

30 of 59 references.

References · 30

  1. 2021Evaluating Large Language Models Trained on Codecited by 8,053
  2. 2023FrugalGPT: How to Use Large Language Models While Reducing Cost and Improving Performancecited by 791
  3. 2024RouteLLM: Learning to Route LLMs with Preference Datacited by 633
  4. 2025DeepSeek-Prover-V2: Advancing Formal Mathematical Reasoning via Reinforcement Learning for Subgoal Decompositioncited by 270
  5. 2025Kimina-Prover Preview: Towards Large Formal Reasoning Models with Reinforcement Learningcited by 173
  6. 2025Goedel-Prover: A Frontier Model for Open-Source Automated Theorem Provingcited by 126
  7. 2025Seed-Prover: Deep and Broad Reasoning for Automated Theorem Provingcited by 96
  8. 2024Formal Mathematical Reasoning: A New Frontier in AIcited by 80
  9. 2023An In-Context Learning Agent for Formal Theorem-Provingcited by 78
  10. 2025Aristotle: IMO-level Automated Theorem Provingcited by 47
  11. 2026Numina-Lean-Agent: An Open and General Agentic Reasoning System for Formal Mathematicscited by 43
  12. 2025Seed-Prover 1.5: Mastering Undergraduate-Level Theorem Proving via Learning from Experiencecited by 36
18 more
  1. 2025Solving Formal Math Problems by Decomposition and Iterative Reflectioncited by 35
  2. 2026A Minimal Agent for Automated Theorem Provingcited by 13
  3. 2026AlgoVeri: An Aligned Benchmark for Verified Code Generation on Classical Algorithmscited by 11
  4. 2026Spend Less, Reason Better: Budget-Aware Value Tree Search for LLM Agentscited by 10
  5. 2026Goedel-Code-Prover: Hierarchical Proof Search for Open State-of-the-Art Code Verificationcited by 10
  6. 2026Goedel-Architect: Streamlining Formal Theorem Proving with Blueprint Generation and Refinementcited by 7
  7. 2026VeriSoftBench: Repository-Scale Formal Verification Benchmarks for Leancited by 6
  8. 2026OProver: A Unified Framework for Agentic Formal Theorem Provingcited by 6
  9. 2026Danus: Orchestrating Mathematical Reasoning Agents with Fact-Graph Memorycited by 5
  10. 2026WybeCoder: Verified Imperative Code Generationcited by 4
  11. 2026DreamProver: Evolving Transferable Lemma Libraries via a Wake-Sleep Theorem-Proving Agentcited by 4
  12. 2026Planning to Hammer: Difficulty-Aware Decomposition for Automating Rocq Proofscited by 4
  13. 2026Agentic Proving for Program Verificationcited by 3
  14. 2026Optimizing the Cost-Quality Tradeoff of Agentic Theorem Provers in Leancited by 3
  15. 2026Automated Lemma Discovery in Agentic Program Verificationcited by 2
  16. 2026Why Agentic Theorem Prover Works: A Statistical Provability Theory of Mathematical Reasoning Modelscited by 1
  17. 2026P3: Joint Program-and-Proof Planning for Verified Code Generationcited by 1
  18. 2026Vero: Can AI Agents Build Formally Verified Software Repositories?cited by 1

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  2. 2026AoA: Theorem Proving Agent over Abstract Syntax Tree of Redesigned Language
  3. 2026Schwarz: Solver-Aware Agentic Program Verification
  4. 2026FORALL-LEAN-AGENT for Auditable Reasoning in Formal Mathematics and Software Verification
  5. 2026Cogentic: Multi-Agent Orchestration for Automated Proof Discovery
  6. 2026Stellar Colosseum: A Many-Agent Harness for Long-Horizon Research in Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science
  7. 2026TCSAlgBench: Benchmarking Automated Proving for Research-Level Theoretical Computer Science
  8. 2026Inductive Deductive Synthesis: Enabling AI to Generate Formally Verified Systems