A Minimal Agent for Automated Theorem Proving
Borja Requena, Austin Letson, Krystian Nowakowski, Izan Beltran Ferreiro, Leopoldo Sarra
Abstract
We propose a minimal agentic baseline that enables systematic comparison across different AI-based theorem prover architectures. This design implements the core features shared among state-of-the-art systems: iterative proof refinement, library search and context management. We evaluate this agentic approach using qualitatively different benchmarks and compare various frontier language models and design choices. Our results show competitive performance compared to state-of-the-art approaches, while using a significantly simpler architecture and a fraction of their cost. Additionally, we demonstrate consistent advantages of an iterative approach over multiple single-shot generations, especially in terms of sample efficiency and cost effectiveness. The implementation is released open-source as a candidate reference for future research and as an accessible prover for the community.
Ask about this paper
Your agent reads all of it.
Lune indexed this paper to the last equation, along with the top-tier papers that cite it. Ask a question and the answer quotes them.
Your agent calls
Luneget_paper_fulltext
Free to start. No credit card required.
Terminal
Install the CLIlune papers fulltext 0988cd9d-1f5d-4f8f-b156-6b264860f2b4Cited by top-tier papers2
- SorryDB: Can AI Provers Complete Real-World Lean Theorems?Austin Letson, Leopoldo Sarra, Auguste Poiroux, Oliver Dressler et al.ICML 2026 · 4 citations
- Compile to Compress: Boosting Formal Theorem Provers by Compiler OutputsGuchan Li, Rui Tian, Hongning WangICML 2026
Builds on11
- Reflexion: language agents with verbal reinforcement learningNoah Shinn, Federico Cassano, Ashwin Gopinath, Karthik Narasimhan et al.NeurIPS 2023 · 5,828 citations
- miniF2F: a cross-system benchmark for formal Olympiad-level mathematicsKunhao Zheng, Jesse Michael Han, Stanislas PoluICLR 2022 · 342 citations
- HyperTree Proof Search for Neural Theorem ProvingGuillaume Lample, Timothée Lacroix, Marie-Anne Lachaux, Aurélien Rodriguez et al.NeurIPS 2022 · 271 citations
- Goedel-Prover-V2: Scaling Formal Theorem Proving with Scaffolded Data Synthesis and Self-CorrectionYong Lin, Shange Tang, Bohan Lyu, Ziran Yang et al.ICLR 2026 · 160 citations
- FATE: A Formal Benchmark Series for Frontier Algebra of Multiple Difficulty LevelsJiedong Jiang, Wanyi He, Yuefeng Wang, Guoxiong Gao et al.ICLR 2026 · 26 citations
Related papers
- Agentic Verification of Software SystemsHaoxin Tu, Huan Zhao, Yahui Song, Mehtab Zafar et al.FSE 2026 · 1 citation
- APOLLO: Automated LLM and Lean Collaboration for Advanced Formal ReasoningAzim Ospanov, Farzan Farnia, Roozbeh MohitNeurIPS 2025 · 49 citations
- STARK: Strategic Team of Agents for Refining KernelsJuncheng Dong, Yang Yang, Tao Liu, Yang Wang et al.ICLR 2026 · 26 citations
- Lean-STaR: Learning to Interleave Thinking and ProvingHaohan Lin, Zhiqing Sun, Sean Welleck, Yiming YangICLR 2025
- Grammar Search for Multi-Agent SystemsMayank Singh, Vikas Yadav, Shiva Krishna Reddy Malay, Shravan Nayak et al.ACL 2026
