Acacia-Bonsai

This is a modern implementation of universal co-Buchi reactive synthesis algorithms using antichain data structures. The theory and practice is described in:

https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.06079

Docker images

Two images are published on the GitHub Container Registry. Boomslang bundles Spot's Python bindings, acacia_boomslang, and Jupyter:

docker pull ghcr.io/gaperez64/acacia-boomslang:latest
docker run --rm -p 8888:8888 ghcr.io/gaperez64/acacia-boomslang:latest

The CLI image contains the dependencies and sources. It compiles inside the container so -march=native can target the host:

docker pull ghcr.io/gaperez64/acacia-bonsai:latest
docker run --name acacia -it ghcr.io/gaperez64/acacia-bonsai:latest
./scripts/compile.sh
./scripts/acacia-bonsai.sh best_decomp_rank_bucketed_mona_tlsf \
  -f 'G F req -> G F grant' -i req -o grant
cat examples/realizable.tlsf | \
  ./scripts/acacia-bonsai.sh best_decomp_rank_bucketed_mona_tlsf --tlsf
cat examples/realizable.tlsf | \
  ./scripts/acacia-synthesis.sh best_decomp_rank_bucketed_mona_tlsf --tlsf > controller.aag

The CLI example intentionally omits --rm: compilation happens inside the named container, so removing it on exit would discard the binaries. Re-enter it with docker start -ai acacia. Run the wrapper without arguments to list the configurations it accepts.

Dependencies

This program depends on:

• A modern C++ compiler (C++23 is used)
• The Meson Build System
• The Downset Manipulation Library
• The Spot Library: You will need to compile and install spot separately. The downset manipulation library requires compilation with g++ so to link against spot you need to compile it with g++ too (set CXX before configuring, compiling, and installing).
• The Z shell, for some scripts.

Initialize the vendored Posets and TLSF-tools dependencies after cloning:

git submodule update --init

This is deliberately non-recursive; Acacia disables TLSF-tools' optional OxiDD backend.

Some of the tests also depend on:

• Valgrind

Installing dependencies on macOS

Note that on macOS the compilation has to happen via GCC. GCC can be installed using Homebrew: brew install gcc. Once installed, meson needs to be told to use GCC instead of built-in Clang. This can be done using the meson-native file, or by setting the CXX and CC environment variables. For instance, do export CXX=$(brew --prefix)/bin/g++-XX before starting with meson.

Spot has to be manually compiled using GCC and installed. After compiling it and installing it, you still need to ensure that meson can find Spot using pkgconfig. This can be done, for example, by setting the pkg_config_path in a meson-native file or by issuing export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig before starting with meson (this works if you installed spot in the default location).

Compiling, running, benchmarking

To compile and run, use Meson:

meson setup build
cd build
meson compile
src/acacia-bonsai -h
  [...]
src/acacia-bonsai -f '((G (F (req))) -> (G (F (grant))))' -i req -o grant
REALIZABLE

This produces a debug build. Build an optimized registered preset with:

./self-benchmark.sh -c best_decomp_mona -R

The -c option selects a configuration and the -R option disables the benchmarking step, so that only setup and compilation are done. If compilation memory is tight, add -L to use the low-memory compile profile.

The native TLSF frontend is optional and off by default. It requires Flex and Bison; enable it directly with -Dacacia_enable_tlsf_frontend=true, or build the best_decomp_mona_tlsf preset:

./self-benchmark.sh -L -R -c best_decomp_mona_tlsf
build_best_decomp_mona_tlsf/src/acacia-bonsai -T spec.tlsf

-T/--tlsf FILE parses TLSF natively. The wrapper accepts TLSF on standard input with --tlsf through the linked frontend; no external TLSF converter or metadata binary is used at runtime. Moore-target controller conversion is likewise performed inside Acacia.

Correctness and performance gates, including the sequential measurement protocol, are documented in benchmarking/README.md.

Compile-time configurations

Acacia-Bonsai's optimized variants are compile-time configurations. The configuration registry lives in config/acacia-options.json and config/acacia-presets.json; scripts/acacia-config.py validates presets and translates them to Meson options.

Inspect and validate the registry with:

python3 scripts/acacia-config.py validate
python3 scripts/acacia-config.py list-presets
python3 scripts/acacia-config.py show best_decomp_mona
python3 scripts/acacia-config.py meson-args best_decomp_mona

meson.build writes these choices into acacia_build_config.hh. The Spot translator preference is registry-backed as acacia_translation_pref; the default is small. The values any and small+any are available for ablation and racing presets such as best_decomp_mona_any and best_decomp_mona_race.

The shipping best_decomp_mona preset enables the exact equivariant solver. It automatically declines to the classic solver when no verified profitable symmetry is available, or when fewer than acacia_equivariant_min_blocks client-state blocks are found (default 4). Use best_decomp_mona_noequivariant for the explicit classic-only escape hatch and performance ablation. New presets should inherit from the nearest existing configuration and override only the values being tested.

Documentation

This project comes with a doxygen configuration file. Execute the following command to generate documentation:

doxygen Doxyfile

Citing

If you use this tool for your academic work, please make sure to cite the paper we wrote about it.

@inproceedings{DBLP:conf/tacas/CadilhacP23,
  author       = {Micha{\"{e}}l Cadilhac and
                  Guillermo A. P{\'{e}}rez},
  editor       = {Sriram Sankaranarayanan and
                  Natasha Sharygina},
  title        = {Acacia-Bonsai: {A} Modern Implementation of Downset-Based {LTL} Realizability},
  booktitle    = {Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems
                  - 29th International Conference, {TACAS} 2023, Held as Part of the
                  European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, {ETAPS}
                  2022, Paris, France, April 22-27, 2023, Proceedings, Part {II}},
  series       = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science},
  volume       = {13994},
  pages        = {192--207},
  publisher    = {Springer},
  year         = {2023},
  url          = {https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30820-8\_14},
  doi          = {10.1007/978-3-031-30820-8\_14},
  timestamp    = {Sat, 29 Apr 2023 19:25:03 +0200},
  biburl       = {https://dblp.org/rec/conf/tacas/CadilhacP23.bib},
  bibsource    = {dblp computer science bibliography, https://dblp.org}
}