{"paper":{"title":"Protocol-Driven Development: Governing Generated Software Through Invariants and Evidence","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","headline":"A machine-enforceable protocol of structural, behavioral, and operational invariants becomes the primary artifact, admitting an implementation only when it produces a verifiable evidence chain of compliance.","cross_cats":["cs.AI","cs.LG"],"primary_cat":"cs.SE","authors_text":"Deying Yu, Jun He","submitted_at":"2026-05-13T04:23:14Z","abstract_excerpt":"Automated program synthesis has reduced the cost of producing candidate implementations, but it introduces a harder governance problem: determining which generated artifacts are admissible in a software system. Natural-language specifications remain semantically ambiguous, and example-based tests sample only part of the behavioral space. Used alone, neither provides a sufficient control boundary for automated software construction. We introduce Protocol-Driven Development (PDD), a development model in which the primary software artifact is a machine-enforceable protocol rather than implementat"},"claims":{"count":4,"items":[{"kind":"strongest_claim","text":"An implementation is admitted if and only if it satisfies the governing protocol and produces a verifiable Evidence Chain of compliance.","source":"verdict.strongest_claim","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C1","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"weakest_assumption","text":"That comprehensive, machine-enforceable protocols of the form (S, B, O) can be practically authored for real-world components and that evidence chains can be produced and verified without prohibitive cost or incompleteness.","source":"verdict.weakest_assumption","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C2","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"one_line_summary","text":"PDD treats protocols of invariants as sovereign, admitting implementations only when they satisfy the protocol triplet and produce a verifiable evidence chain of compliance.","source":"verdict.one_line_summary","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C3","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"headline","text":"A machine-enforceable protocol of structural, behavioral, and operational invariants becomes the primary artifact, admitting an implementation only when it produces a verifiable evidence chain of compliance.","source":"verdict.pith_extraction.headline","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C4","attestation":"unclaimed"}],"snapshot_sha256":"e940af41dcbfb97806c7c4e241b55d590376f8f157d148f7fdf328c3ac0c1ab3"},"source":{"id":"2605.12981","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":"75ac6fb7-fa76-465f-99f5-e8512841b5e1","model_set":{"reader":"grok-4.3"},"created_at":"2026-05-14T18:41:32.412456Z","strongest_claim":"An implementation is admitted if and only if it satisfies the governing protocol and produces a verifiable Evidence Chain of compliance.","one_line_summary":"PDD treats protocols of invariants as sovereign, admitting implementations only when they satisfy the protocol triplet and produce a verifiable evidence chain of compliance.","pipeline_version":"pith-pipeline@v0.9.0","weakest_assumption":"That comprehensive, machine-enforceable protocols of the form (S, B, O) can be practically authored for real-world components and that evidence chains can be produced and verified without prohibitive cost or incompleteness.","pith_extraction_headline":"A machine-enforceable protocol of structural, behavioral, and operational invariants becomes the primary artifact, admitting an implementation only when it produces a verifiable evidence chain of compliance."},"references":{"count":25,"sample":[{"doi":"","year":null,"title":"Beck, Kent , title =","work_id":"ff1f7b7a-a751-4157-8cc2-c4a9a4eb2774","ref_index":1,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":1969,"title":"Hoare, C. 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