ACIR Formal Proofs

Run the full ACIR formal verification pipeline: build tests, generate artifacts, and run each test with resource limits.

Prerequisites

• CMake with SMT=ON and ACIR_FORMAL_PROOFS=ON flags
• Rust toolchain (for building ssa_verification)
• Sufficient RAM (some tests need >32GB)

Steps

Step 1: Build the acir_formal_proofs test binary

Configure cmake with SMT support and build:

cd barretenberg/cpp
cmake --preset smt-verification -DACIR_FORMAL_PROOFS=ON
cd build-smt && ninja acir_formal_proofs_tests

The preset smt-verification already sets SMT=ON. We additionally need ACIR_FORMAL_PROOFS=ON.

If the build has already been configured, just run ninja acir_formal_proofs_tests from build-smt/.

Step 2: Fetch noir/noir-repo submodule (if needed)

Check if the submodule is populated:

ls noir/noir-repo/tooling/ssa_verification/Cargo.toml 2>/dev/null

If the file doesn't exist, initialize the submodule:

git submodule update --init --depth 1 noir/noir-repo

Step 3: Build and run ssa_verification to generate ACIR artifacts

ALWAYS run this step — even if .acir files already exist in /tmp/. The artifacts must be regenerated every time to ensure they match the current noir compiler version.

cd noir/noir-repo
cargo run --release -p ssa_verification -- --dir /tmp/

This generates .acir files in /tmp/ that the C++ tests load. The tool compiles Noir SSA instructions into ACIR format for each operation (add, sub, mul, div, etc.) with various type combinations.

Step 4: Ask the user for resource limits

Before running tests, ask the user:

What is the maximum time (in seconds) and memory (in GB) you'd like to allow per test? Some tests are very fast (<10s) while others can take hours or days. Known heavy tests:

Test	Typical time	Typical memory
uint_terms_shl32	~4574s	~30GB
uint_terms_shl8	~4574s	~30GB
uint_terms_shr	~3928s	~10GB
uint_terms_xor	~355s	-
uint_terms_div	days	20GB
uint_terms_mod	>130 days	3.2GB
integer_terms_div	>17 days	20GB
non_uniqueness_for_truncate_field_to_u64	hours	-

Suggested defaults: 600 seconds, 16 GB (skips the heaviest tests)

Wait for the user to provide limits before proceeding.

Step 5: Run each test individually with timeouts

Use the run_tests.sh script bundled with this skill. It runs all tests sequentially with the user's time/memory limits and writes results to /tmp/acir_test_results.txt.

.claude/skills/acir-formal-proofs/scripts/run_tests.sh ${TIME_LIMIT} ${MEM_LIMIT_GB}

For example, with 600s timeout and 16GB memory limit:

.claude/skills/acir-formal-proofs/scripts/run_tests.sh 600 16

The script handles timeout/OOM detection, wall-clock timing via /usr/bin/time -v, and prints a summary table at the end. Results are saved to /tmp/acir_test_results.txt in pipe-delimited format.

CRITICAL: Do NOT run tests any other way. Do NOT launch multiple tests in parallel — these tests are extremely memory- and CPU-intensive (some use >30GB RAM).

Step 6: Update README.md results table

After all tests complete, update the results table in: barretenberg/cpp/src/barretenberg/acir_formal_proofs/README.md

For each test that was run, update the corresponding row:

• Time/seconds: actual elapsed time (or "TIMEOUT" / "OOM" / "???" for failures)
• Memory/GB: peak RSS converted to GB (or the limit if OOM)
• Success: ✓ if passed, ✗ if failed/timeout/OOM
• Reason: - if passed, otherwise "Test takes too long", "OOM", or the failure reason
• Last Check (D/M/Y): today's date in DD.MM.YYYY format

The mapping from test name to README row is by opcode + types. For example:

• uint_terms_add -> Binary::Add | Unsigned_128 | Unsigned_128
• field_terms_add -> Binary::Add | Field | Field
• SignedAdd -> Binary::Add | Signed_64 | Signed_64
• uint_terms_not -> Not | Unsigned_128 | -
• non_uniqueness_for_truncate_u64_to_u8 -> Truncate | Unsigned_64 | Unsigned_8

Do NOT modify rows for tests that were not run (e.g., if they timed out in a previous run and were skipped).

Add new rows if any tests exist in the test file but not in the README table.