Meta-F \star - Proof Automation with SMT, Tactics, and Metaprograms.

We introduce Meta-F-star, a tactics and metaprogramming framework for the F-star program verifier. The main novelty of Meta-F-star is allowing the use of tactics and metaprogramming to discharge assertions not solvable by SMT, or to just simplify them into well-behaved SMT fragments. Plus, Meta-F-star can be used to generate verified code automatically. Meta-F-star is implemented as an F-star effect, which, given the powerful effect system of F-star, heavily increases code reuse and even enables the lightweight verification of metaprograms. Metaprograms can be either interpreted, or compiled to efficient native code that can be dynamically loaded into the F-star type-checker and can interoperate with interpreted code. Evaluation on realistic case studies shows that Meta-F-star provides substantial gains in proof development, efficiency, and robustness.