invar-tools 1.6.0

AI-native software engineering tools with design-by-contract verification

Invar

From AI-generated to AI-engineered code.

Invar brings decades of software engineering best practices to AI-assisted development.
Through automated verification, structured workflows, and proven design patterns,
agents write code that's correct by construction—not by accident.

What It Looks Like

An AI agent, guided by Invar, writes code with formal contracts and built-in tests:

from invar_runtime import pre, post

@pre(lambda items: len(items) > 0)
@post(lambda result: result >= 0)
def average(items: list[float]) -> float:
    """
    Calculate the average of a non-empty list.

    >>> average([1.0, 2.0, 3.0])
    2.0
    >>> average([10.0])
    10.0
    """
    return sum(items) / len(items)

Invar's Guard automatically verifies the code—the agent sees results and fixes issues without human intervention:

$ invar guard
Invar Guard Report
========================================
No violations found.
----------------------------------------
Files checked: 1 | Errors: 0 | Warnings: 0
Contract coverage: 100% (1/1 functions)

Code Health: 100% ████████████████████ (Excellent)
✓ Doctests passed
✓ CrossHair: no counterexamples found
✓ Hypothesis: property tests passed
----------------------------------------
Guard passed.

---

🚀 Quick Start

📦 Two Packages, Different Purposes

┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Your Project                                                     │
│  ├── pyproject.toml                                               │
│  │   └── dependencies = ["invar-runtime"]  ← Ships with code      │
│  │                                                                │
│  └── Development (never enters production)                        │
│      └── uvx invar-tools guard  ← Guides agents                   │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Package	Purpose	Install
invar-runtime	Runtime contracts. Add to your project dependencies.	pip install invar-runtime
invar-tools	Development tools. Guides agents during development.	uvx invar-tools <cmd>

Why uvx? Always uses latest version, doesn't pollute project dependencies, auto-detects your project's venv.

🆕 New Project

# 1. Enter your project directory
cd your-project

# 2. Initialize with Claude Code (full experience)
uvx invar-tools init --claude

# 3. Add runtime contracts to your project
pip install invar-runtime
# Or add to pyproject.toml: dependencies = ["invar-runtime"]

# 4. Start coding with AI

📁 Existing Project

cd your-project

# Update managed files, preserve your customizations
uvx invar-tools init --claude

# Or without Claude Code integration
uvx invar-tools init

Invar's init is idempotent—safe to run multiple times. It detects existing configuration and updates only managed regions.

💬 Example Interaction

You say:

"Add a function that calculates compound interest with validation"

Agent responds (automatically guided by Invar):

✓ Check-In: my-project | main | clean

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📍 /develop → SPECIFY (2/4)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

First, I'll define the contract:

@pre(lambda principal, rate, years: principal > 0 and rate >= 0 and years > 0)
@post(lambda result: result >= principal)
def compound_interest(principal: float, rate: float, years: int) -> float:
    ...

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📍 /develop → VALIDATE (4/4)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

$ invar guard --changed
WARN: missing doctest example (compound_interest)

[Agent adds doctest, re-runs guard]

$ invar guard --changed
Guard passed. (1 file, 0 errors)

✓ Final: guard PASS | 0 errors, 0 warnings

Key insight: The agent verifies and fixes automatically. You review the result, not the process.

---

Why Invar?

⚠️ The Problem: Unconstrained AI = Unpredictable Quality

Without guardrails, AI-generated code has systematic risks:

• No specification → Agent guesses intent, misses edge cases
• No feedback loop → Errors accumulate undetected
• No workflow → Jumps to implementation, skips validation
• No separation → I/O mixed with logic, code becomes untestable

Invar addresses each from the ground up.

✅ Solution 1: Contracts as Specification

Contracts (@pre/@post) turn vague intent into verifiable specifications:

# Without contracts: "calculate average" is ambiguous
def average(items):
    return sum(items) / len(items)  # What if empty? What's the return type?

# With contracts: specification is explicit and verifiable
@pre(lambda items: len(items) > 0)      # Precondition: non-empty input
@post(lambda result: result >= 0)        # Postcondition: non-negative output
def average(items: list[float]) -> float:
    """
    >>> average([1.0, 2.0, 3.0])
    2.0
    """
    return sum(items) / len(items)

Benefits:

• Agent knows exactly what to implement
• Edge cases are explicit in the contract
• Verification is automatic, not manual review

✅ Solution 2: Multi-Layer Verification

Guard provides fast feedback. Agent sees errors, fixes immediately:

Layer	Tool	Speed	What It Catches
Static	Guard rules	~0.5s	Architecture violations, missing contracts
Doctest	pytest	~2s	Example correctness
Property	Hypothesis	~10s	Edge cases via random inputs
Symbolic	CrossHair	~30s	Mathematical proof of contracts

┌──────────┐   ┌───────────┐   ┌───────────┐   ┌────────────┐
│ ⚡ Static │ → │ 🧪 Doctest│ → │ 🎲 Property│ → │ 🔬 Symbolic│
│   ~0.5s  │   │   ~2s     │   │   ~10s    │   │   ~30s     │
└──────────┘   └───────────┘   └───────────┘   └────────────┘

Agent writes code
       ↓
   invar guard  ←──────┐
       ↓               │
   Error found?        │
       ↓ Yes           │
   Agent fixes ────────┘
       ↓ No
   Done ✓

✅ Solution 3: Workflow Discipline

The USBV workflow forces "specify before implement":

🔍 Understand  →  📝 Specify  →  🔨 Build  →  ✓ Validate
      │              │              │            │
   Context        Contracts        Code        Guard

Skill routing ensures agents enter through the correct workflow:

User Intent	Skill Invoked	Behavior
"why does X fail?"	/investigate	Research only, no code changes
"should we use A or B?"	/propose	Present options with trade-offs
"add feature X"	/develop	Full USBV workflow
(after develop)	/review	Adversarial review with fix loop

✅ Solution 4: Architecture Constraints

Pattern	Enforcement	Benefit
Core/Shell	Guard blocks I/O imports in Core	100% testable business logic
Result[T, E]	Guard warns if Shell returns bare values	Explicit error handling

🔮 Future: Quality Guidance (DX-61)

Beyond "correct or not"—Invar will suggest improvements:

SUGGEST: 3 string parameters in 'find_symbol'
  → Consider NewType for semantic clarity

From gatekeeper to mentor.

---

🏗️ Core Concepts

Core/Shell Architecture

Separate pure logic from I/O for maximum testability:

Zone	Location	Requirements
Core	**/core/**	@pre/@post contracts, doctests, no I/O imports
Shell	**/shell/**	Result[T, E] return types

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  🐚 Shell (I/O Layer)                       │
│  load_config, save_result, fetch_data       │
└──────────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
                   │
                   ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  💎 Core (Pure Logic)                       │
│  parse_config, validate, calculate          │
└──────────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
                   │
                   ▼ Result[T, E]

# Core: Pure, testable, provable
def parse_config(content: str) -> Config:
    return Config.parse(content)

# Shell: Handles I/O, returns Result
def load_config(path: Path) -> Result[Config, str]:
    try:
        return Success(parse_config(path.read_text()))
    except FileNotFoundError:
        return Failure(f"Not found: {path}")

Session Protocol

Clear boundaries for every AI session:

Phase	Format	Purpose
Start	✓ Check-In: project | branch | status	Context visibility
End	✓ Final: guard PASS | 0 errors	Verification proof

Intellectual Heritage

Foundational Theory: Design-by-Contract (Meyer, 1986) · Functional Core/Imperative Shell (Bernhardt) · Property-Based Testing (QuickCheck, 2000) · Symbolic Execution (King, 1976)

Inspired By: Eiffel · Dafny · Idris · Haskell

AI Programming Research: AlphaCodium · Parsel · Reflexion · Clover

Dependencies: deal · returns · CrossHair · Hypothesis

---

🖥️ Platform Experience

Feature	Claude Code	Other Editors
CLI verification (invar guard)	✅	✅
Protocol document (INVAR.md)	✅	✅
MCP tool integration	✅ Auto-configured	Manual setup possible
Workflow skills	✅ Auto-configured	Include in system prompt
Pre-commit hooks	✅	✅
Sub-agent review	✅	—

Claude Code provides the full experience—MCP tools, skill routing, and hooks are auto-configured by invar init --claude.

Other editors can achieve similar results by:

1. Adding INVAR.md content to system prompts
2. Manually configuring MCP servers (if supported)
3. Using CLI commands for verification

---

📂 What Gets Installed

invar init --claude creates:

File/Directory	Purpose	Editable?
INVAR.md	Protocol for AI agents	No (managed)
CLAUDE.md	Project configuration	Yes
.claude/skills/	Workflow skills	Yes
.claude/hooks/	Tool call interception	Yes
.invar/examples/	Reference patterns	No (managed)
.invar/context.md	Project state, lessons	Yes
pyproject.toml	[tool.invar] section	Yes

Recommended structure:

src/{project}/
├── core/    # Pure logic (@pre/@post, doctests, no I/O)
└── shell/   # I/O operations (Result[T, E] returns)

---

⚙️ Configuration

# pyproject.toml

[tool.invar.guard]
# Option 1: Explicit paths
core_paths = ["src/myapp/core"]
shell_paths = ["src/myapp/shell"]

# Option 2: Pattern matching (for existing projects)
core_patterns = ["**/domain/**", "**/models/**"]
shell_patterns = ["**/api/**", "**/cli/**"]

# Option 3: Auto-detection (when no paths/patterns specified)
# - Default paths: src/core, core, src/shell, shell
# - Content analysis: @pre/@post → Core, Result → Shell

# Size limits
max_file_lines = 500
max_function_lines = 50

# Requirements
require_contracts = true
require_doctests = true

🚪 Escape Hatches

For code that intentionally breaks rules:

# Exclude entire directories
[[tool.invar.guard.rule_exclusions]]
pattern = "**/generated/**"
rules = ["*"]

# Exclude specific rules for specific files
[[tool.invar.guard.rule_exclusions]]
pattern = "**/legacy_api.py"
rules = ["missing_contract", "shell_result"]

---

🔧 Tool Reference

CLI Commands

Command	Purpose
invar guard	Full verification (static + doctest + property + symbolic)
invar guard --changed	Only git-modified files
invar guard --static	Static analysis only (~0.5s)
invar init	Initialize or update project
invar sig <file>	Show signatures and contracts
invar map	Symbol map with reference counts
invar rules	List all rules
invar test	Property-based tests (Hypothesis)
invar verify	Symbolic verification (CrossHair)
invar hooks	Manage Claude Code hooks

MCP Tools

Tool	Purpose
invar_guard	Smart multi-layer verification
invar_sig	Extract signatures and contracts
invar_map	Symbol map with reference counts

---

📚 Learn More

Created by invar init:

• INVAR.md — Protocol v5.0
• .invar/examples/ — Reference patterns

Documentation:

• Vision & Philosophy
• Technical Design

---

📄 License

Component	License	Notes
invar-runtime	Apache-2.0	Use freely in any project
invar-tools	GPL-3.0	Improvements must be shared
Documentation	CC-BY-4.0	Share with attribution

See NOTICE for third-party licenses.