Invariants
Invariants describe a property of the state of a contract that is always expected to hold.
Caution
Even if an invariant is verified, it may still be possible to violate it. This is a potential source of unsoundness. See Assumptions made while checking invariants for details.
Contents
Syntax
The syntax for invariants is given by the following EBNF grammar:
invariant ::= "invariant" id
[ "(" params ")" ]
expression
[ "filtered" "{" id "->" expression "}" ]
[ "{" { preserved_block } "}" ]
preserved_block ::= "preserved"
[ method_signature ]
[ "with" "(" params ")" ]
block
method_signature ::= id "(" [ evm_type [ id ] { "," evm_type [ id ] } ] ")"
| "fallback" "(" ")"
See Basic Syntax for the id
production, Expressions for the expression
production, and Statements for the block
production.
Overview
In CVL, an invariant is a property of the contract state that is expected to be true whenever a contract method is not currently executing. This kind of invariant is sometimes called a “representation invariant”.
Each invariant has a name, possibly followed by a set of parameters, followed by a boolean expression. We say the invariant holds if the expression evaluates to true in every reachable state of the contract, and for all possible values of the parameters.
While verifying an invariant, the Prover checks two things. First, it checks that the invariant is established after calling any constructor. Second, it checks that the invariant holds after the execution of any contract method, assuming that it held before the method was executed (if it does hold, we say the method preserves the invariant).
If an invariant is proven, it is safe to assume that it holds in other rules and invariants. The requireInvariant command makes it easy to add this assumption to another rule, and is a quick way to rule out counterexamples that start in impossible states. See also Listing Safe Assumptions.
Note
Invariants are intended to describe the state of a contract at a particular point in time. Therefore, you should only use view functions inside of an invariant. Non-view functions are allowed, but the behavior is undefined.
Assumptions made while checking invariants
In Ethereum, the only way to change the storage state of a smart contract is using the smart contract’s methods. Therefore, if an invariant depends only on the storage of the contract, we can prove the invariant by checking it after calling each of the contract methods.
However, it is possible to write invariants whose value depends on things other
than the contract’s storage. The truth of an expression may depend on the
state of other contracts or on the environment. For these invariants,
the expression can change from true
to false
without invoking a method on
the main contract.
For example, consider the following contract:
contract Timestamp {
uint256 public immutable timestamp;
constructor() {
timestamp = block.timestamp;
}
}
The following invariant will be successfully verified, although it is clearly false:
invariant time_is_now(env e)
timestamp() == e.block.timestamp;
The verification is successful because the action that falsifies the invariant is the passage of time, rather than the invocation of a contract method.
Similarly, an invariant that depends on an external contract can become false by calling a method on the external contract. For example:
contract SupplyTracker {
address token;
uint256 public supply;
constructor(address _token) {
token = _token;
supply = token.totalSupply();
}
}
As above, an invariant stating that supply() == token.totalSupply()
would be
verified, but a method on token
might change the total supply without updating
the SupplyTracker
contract. Since the Prover only checks the main contract’s
methods for preservation, it will not report that the invariant can be
falsified.
For this reason, invariants that depend on the environment or on the state of external contracts are a potential source of unsoundness, and should be used with care.
Todo
There is an additional source of unsoundness that occurs if the invariant expression reverts in the before state but not in the after state.
Preserved blocks
Often, the preservation of an invariant depends on another invariant, or on an
external assumption about the system. These assumptions can be written in
preserved
blocks.
Caution
Adding require
statements to preserved blocks can be a source of
unsoundness, since the invariants are only guaranteed to hold if the
requirements are true for every method invocation.
Recall that the Prover checks that a method preserves an invariant by first
requiring the invariant (the prestate check), then executing the method, and
then asserting the invariant (the poststate check). Preserved blocks are
executed after the prestate check but before executing the method. They
usually consist of require
or requireInvariant
statements, although other
commands are also possible.
Preserved blocks are listed after the invariant expression (and after the filter
block, if any), inside a set of curly braces ({ ... }
). Each preserved block
consists of the keyword preserved
followed by an optional method signature,
an optional with
declaration, and finally the block of commands to execute.
If a preserved block specifies a method signature, the signature must either be fallback()
or
match one of the contract methods, and the preserved block only applies when
checking preservation of that contract method. The fallback()
preserved block
applies only to the fallback()
function that should be defined in the contract.
The arguments of the method are in scope within the preserved block.
If there is no method signature, the preserved is a default block that applies to
all methods that don’t have a specific preserved block, including the fallback()
method.
The with
declaration is used to give a name to the environment used
while invoking the method. It can be used to restrict the transactions that are
considered. For example, the following preserved block rules out
counterexamples where the msg.sender
is the 0 address:
invariant zero_address_has_no_balance()
balanceOf(0) == 0
{ preserved with (env e) { require e.msg.sender != 0; } }
The variables defined as parameters to the invariant are also available in
preserved blocks, which allows restricting the arguments that are considered
when checking that a method preserves an invariant. As always, you should use
caution when adding additional require
statements, as they can rule out
important cases.
Caution
A common source of confusion is the difference between env
parameters
to an invariant and the env
variables defined by the with
declaration.
Compare the following to the previous example:
invariant zero_address_has_no_balance_v2(env e)
balanceOf(e, 0) == 0
{ preserved { require e.msg.sender != 0; } }
In this example, we require the msg.sender
argument to balanceOf
to be
nonzero, but makes no restrictions on the environment for the call to the method
we are checking for preservation.
To see why this is not the desired behavior, consider a deposit
method that
increases the message sender’s balance. When the
zero_address_has_no_balance_v2
invariant is checked on deposit
, the Prover
will effectively check the following (see Writing an invariant as a rule):
env e;
require balanceOf(e,0) == 0;
env calledEnv;
require e.msg.sender != 0; // from the `preserved` block
deposit(calledEnv, ...);
assert balanceOf(e,0) == 0;
Notice that the calledEnv
is not restricted by the preserved
block.
The Prover will report a violation with the msg.sender
set to 0 in the call to deposit
and set to a nonzero value in the calls to balanceOf
. This counterexample is
not ruled out by the preserved
block because the preserved
block only
places restrictions on the environment passed to balanceOf
.
In general, you should be cautious of invariants that depend on an environment; see Assumptions made while checking invariants for more details.
Filters
For performance reasons, you may want to avoid checking that an invariant is preserved by a particular method or set of methods. Invariant filters provide a method for skipping verification on a method-by-method basis.
Caution
Filtering out methods while checking invariants is unsound. If you are
filtering out a method because the invariant doesn’t pass, consider using a
preserved
block instead; this allows you to add assumptions in a fine-grained
way.
To filter out methods from an invariant, add a filtered
block after the
expression defining the invariant. The body of the filtered
block must
contain a single filter of the form var -> expr
, where var
is a variable
name, and expr
is a boolean expression that may depend on var
.
Before verifying that a method preserves an invariant, the expr
is
evaluated with var
bound to a method
object. This allows expr
to refer
to the checked method using var
’s fields, such as var.selector
and
var.isView
. See The method and calldataarg types for a list of the fields available on
method
objects.
If the expression evaluates to false
with var
replaced by a given method,
the Prover will not check that the method preserves the invariant. For example,
the following invariant will not be checked on the deposit(uint)
method:
invariant balance_is_0(address a)
balanceOf(a) == 0
filtered {
f -> f.selector != sig:deposit(uint).selector
}
In this example, when the variable f
is bound to deposit(uint)
, the
expression f.selector != sig:deposit(uint).selector
evaluates to false
, so the
method will be skipped.
Note
If there is a preserved block for a method, the method will be verified even if the filter would normally exclude it.
Writing an invariant as a rule
Above we explained that verifying an invariant requires two checks: an initial-state check that the constructor establishes the invariant, and a preservation check that each method preserves the invariant.
Invariants are the only mechanism in CVL for specifying properties of constructors, but parametric rules can be used to write the preservation check in a different way. This is useful for two reasons: First, it can help you understand what the preservation check is doing. Second, it can help break down a complicated invariant by defining new intermediate variables.
The following example demonstrates all of the features of invariants:
invariant complex_example(env e1, uint arg)
property_of(e1, arg)
filtered {
m -> m.selector != sig:ignored(uint, address).selector
}
{
preserved with (env e2) {
require e2.msg.sender != 0;
}
preserved special_method(address a) with (env e3) {
require a != 0;
require e3.block.timestamp > 0;
}
}
The preservation check for this invariant could be written as a parametric rule as follows:
rule complex_example_as_rule(env e1, uint arg, method f)
filtered {
f -> f.selector != sig:ignored(uint, address).selector
}
{
// pre-state check
require property_of(e1, arg);
if (f.selector == sig:special_method(address).selector) {
// special_method preserved block
address a;
env e3;
require a != 0;
require e3.block.timestamp > 0;
// method execution
special_method(e3, a);
} else {
// general preserved block
calldataarg args;
env e2;
require e2.msg.sender != 0;
// method execution
f(e2, args);
}
// post-state check
assert property_of(e1, arg);
}
Invariants and induction
This section describes the logical justification for invariant checks. You do
not need to understand this section to use the Prover correctly, but it helps
explain the connection between the invariant checks and mathematical proofs for
those who are familiar with writing proofs. This section also justifies the
safety of arbitrary requireInvariant
statements in preserved
blocks.
This section assumes familiarity with basic proofs by induction. We use the symbols \(∀\), \(⇒\), and \(∧\) to stand for “for all”, “implies”, and “and” respectively.
Consider an invariant i(x)
that is verified by the Prover. For the moment,
let’s assume that i(x)
has no preserved
blocks. We will prove that for all
reachable states of the contract, i(x)
is true
.
A state s
is reachable if we can start with an newly created state (that is,
where all storage variables are 0), apply any constructor, and then call any
number of contract methods to produce s
.
Let \(P_i(x,n)\) be the statement “if we start from the newly created
state, apply any constructor, and then call \(n\) contract methods, then
the resulting state satisfies i(x)
.” Our goal is then to prove
\(∀ n, ∀ x, P_i(x,n)\). We will prove this by induction on \(n\).
In the base case we want to show that for any \(x\), if we apply any
constructor to the newly created contract, that the resulting state satisfies
i(x)
. This is exactly what the Prover verifies in the initial state check.
In other words, the initial state check proves that \(∀ x, P_i(x,0)\).
For the inductive step, we assume that any \(n\) contract calls produce a
state that satisfies i(x)
, and we want to show that a state produced after
\(n+1\) calls also satisfies i(x)
. This is exactly what the Prover
verifies in the preservation check: that if the state before the last method
call satisfies i(x)
then after the last method call it still satisfies
i(x)
. In other words, the preservation check proves that
\(∀ n, ∀ x, P_i(x,n) ⇒ P_i(x, n+1)\).
This completes the proof that together, the initial state check and the
preservation check ensure that the invariant i
holds on all reachable states.
Now, let us consider preserved blocks. Adding require
statements to a
preserved
block for invariant i
adds an additional assumption Q
to the
preservation check. Now, instead of
the preservation check only proves
The addition of the assumption \(Q\) invalidates the above proof if we don’t
have reason to believe that \(Q\) actually holds, which is why we caution
against adding require
statements to preserved
blocks.
However, it is important to note that adding requireInvariant j(y)
to a
preserved
block is safe (assuming that j
is verified), even if the
preserved
block for j
requires the invariant i
. To demonstrate this, we
consider three examples.
For the first example, consider the spec
invariant i(uint x) ... { preserved { requireInvariant i(x); } }
Although this may seem like circular logic (we require i
in the proof of
i
), it is not. The verification of the preservation check for i
proves the
statement
which is logically equivalent
to the preservation check without the preserved
block (since \(P_i(x,n) ∧ P_i(x,n)\)
is equivalent to just \(P_i(x,n)\)).
For the second example, consider the following spec:
invariant i(uint x) ... { preserved { requireInvariant j(x); } }
invariant j(uint x) ... { preserved { requireInvariant i(x); } }
Verifying these invariants gives us the preservation check for i
:
and for j
:
Putting these together allows us to conclude
which is exactly what we need for an inductive proof of the statement
\(∀ n, ∀ x, P_i(x,n) ∧ P_j(x,n)\). This statement then shows that both
i(x)
and j(x)
are true in all reachable states.
For the third example, consider the following spec:
invariant i(uint x) ... { preserved { requireInvariant i(f(x)); } }
The preservation check now proves
Seeing that this gives us enough to write an inductive proof that \(∀ n, ∀ x, P_i(x,n)\) takes a little more effort, but it only requires a simple trick. Let \(Q(n)\) be the statement \(∀ x, P_i(x,n)\). We prove \(∀ n, Q(n)\) by induction.
The base case comes directly from the initial state check for i
.
For the inductive step, choose an arbitrary \(n\) and assume \(Q(n)\). We want to show \(Q(n+1)\), i.e. that \(∀ x, P_i(x, n+1)\). Fix an arbitrary \(x\). We can apply \(Q(n)\) to \(x\) to conclude \(P_i(x,n)\). We can also apply \(Q(n)\) to \(f(x)\) to conclude \(P_i(f(x), n)\). These facts together with the preservation check show \(P_i(x, n+1)\). Since \(x\) was arbitrary, we can conclude \(∀ x, P(x, n+1)\), which is \(Q(n+1)\). This completes the inductive step, and thus the proof.
The techniques used in these three examples can be used to demonstrate that it
is always logically sound to add a requireInvariant
to a preserved
block,
even for complicated interdependent invariants (as long as the required
invariants have been verified).