It is commonly agreed that the success of future proof assistants will rely on their ability to incorporate computations within deduction in order to mimic the mathematician when replacing the proof of a proposition P by the proof of an equivalent proposition P ’ obtained from P thanks to possibly complex calculations. In this paper, we investigate a new version of the calculus of inductive constructions which incorporates arbitrary decision procedures into deduction via the conversion rule of the calculus. The novelty of the problem in the context of the calculus of inductive constructions lies in the fact that the computation mechanism varies along proof-checking: goals are sent to the decision procedure together with the set of user hypotheses available from the current context. Our main result shows that this extension of the calculus of constructions does not compromise its main properties: confluence, subject reduction, strong normalization and consistency are all preserved.

(CIC) on which the proof assistant Coq is based: the Calculus of Congruent Inductive Constructions, which truly extends CIC by building in arbitrary first-order decision procedures: deduction is still in charge of the CIC kernel, while computation is outsourced to dedicated first-order decision procedures that can be taken from the shelves provided they deliver a proof certificate. The soundness of the whole system becomes an incremental property following from the soundness of the certificate checkers and that of the kernel. A detailed example shows that the resulting style of proofs becomes closer to that of the working mathematician. 1

Abstract. Coq Modulo Theory (CoqMT) is an extension of the Coq proof assistant incorporating, in its computational mechanism, validity entailment for user-defined first-order equational theories. Such a mechanism strictly enriches the system (more terms are typable), eases the use of dependent types and provides more automation during the development of proofs. CoqMT improves over the Calculus of Congruent Inductive Constructions by getting rid of various restrictions and simplifying the type-checking algorithm and the integration of first-order decision procedures. We present here CoqMT, and outline its meta-theoretical study. We also give a brief description of our CoqMT implementation. 1