Invariant

Concept

An invariant is a condition or property used by analysis, verification, or runtime-guarding techniques to constrain or characterize system behavior. In the supplied evidence, invariants restrict starting states in Interval Property Checking, describe program conditions shared across software versions, and serve as guards for smart-contract transaction monitoring.

First seen 5/29/2026

Last seen 5/29/2026

Evidence 2 chunks

Wiki v1

WIKI

Definition

An invariant is a condition or property used to characterize allowed behavior or state in a system. The evidence describes invariants in three technical settings: formal hardware verification, software-version analysis, and smart-contract security.

Use in Interval Property Checking

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Interval Property Checking ← uses 100% 1e

IPC uses invariants to restrict the starting state and remove false negatives.

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Interval Property Checking USES Extracted graph relationship

CITATIONS

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[1] IPC checks safety properties over bounded intervals using SAT-based reasoning and uses an arbitrary starting state rather than the initial state used in bounded model checking. Generating an Efficient Instruction Set Simulator from a Complete Property Suite

[2] In IPC, counterexamples can arise from unreachable starting states; the cited work says these false negatives are removed by adding invariants that restrict the starting state. Generating an Efficient Instruction Set Simulator from a Complete Property Suite

[3] The IPC formalization models a synchronous circuit as a finite-state machine, translates safety properties to Boolean functions, and searches for counterexamples using a SAT instance over an unrolled transition relation. Generating an Efficient Instruction Set Simulator from a Complete Property Suite

[4] Invariant Diffs defines version invariants as program conditions common across versions and invariant churns as changes in program conditions between versions; it correlates invariant diffs with source diffs. Invariant Diffs

[5] Smart-contract runtime monitoring and guarding mechanisms validate invariants to stop anomalous transactions; Trace2Inv dynamically generates contract-specific invariants from historical transaction data and, in the reported evaluation, combinations of guards blocked up to 23 of 27 benchmark exploits with false-positive rates as low as 0.32%. Demystifying Invariant Effectiveness for Securing Smart Contracts