SEMay 27

A Minimal Executable Proof for Multi-Language Contract Traceability

arXiv:2605.285460.1
AI Analysis

For developers and researchers working on multi-language contract traceability, this provides a compact, falsifiable artifact showing how contracts and implementation graphs can be checked against executable witnesses.

This paper presents a minimal executable proof demonstrating how a DAG-TOML contract can be linked to multiple language implementations (Rust, Go, C, Java, TypeScript, AWK) with traceability, readiness gates, and evidence matrices. The witness harness achieved five PASS outcomes, one SKIP (Java), and zero FAIL outcomes.

This paper reports a deliberately small executable proof for a DAG-TOML contract: six "Hello, world!" implementations in Rust, Go, C, Java, TypeScript, and AWK are linked to one observable-output contract, one implementation DAG, one traceability file, one readiness gate, and one evidence matrix. The load-bearing contract requires the exact UTF-8 byte sequence `Hello, world!\n`, zero stderr bytes, and exit code 0. On the runner used for this paper, the witness harness reported five PASS outcomes, one SKIP for Java because `javac/java` was not on `PATH`, and zero FAIL outcomes. Two sidecar witnesses exercise narrower source-analysis claims: a convoluted Go rewrite hides the contiguous greeting literal but remains visible to sqry at the declared AST symbol and simple-edge level, while an indirect AWK rewrite uses a declared source profile because AWK is not in the repository's sqry-backed validator language set. The contribution is not a benchmark, a claim of general semantic equivalence, or a production assurance system. It is a compact, falsifiable artifact that shows how a contract, implementation graph, traceability chain, and review gate can be checked against executable witnesses.

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