pstack-statechart

Statechart

The chart shows how a system moves between states, in the words of the person who reads it. The scripts call that person the reader, as in readerActions and reader steps. The reader decides whether the behavior is right. The reader can be a PM who reads a product flow, an engineer who reads a protocol or a service, or a reviewer who reads a design. Label each state with what the reader can observe or cares about, such as "Paying" in an app or "Lease held, write pending" in a lock service. Label each step with the event that moves the system, such as "tap Pay" in an app, "the request reads the count" in a service, or "the lease expires" in a lock service. Keep variable and action names out of labels.

Run node <skill dir>/scripts/statechart.mjs --help for the commands and for how to read a chart. Work in a scratch folder outside the repo. The command writes its files next to its input. The first run installs TLC and Java with mise, which downloads about 305 MB and needs the network. The help's TLC section tells how to use a TLC and Java that you have.

Pick the direction

Use from-spec when a TLA+ model exists, or when the code or design is concrete enough to model. Use from-chart when there is no model, and the people who own the behavior should agree on it before anyone builds or changes it.

If the code already has a TLA+ spec, start from a copy of that spec. Add the variables that the labels and rules need, and keep the spec's existing invariants. To audit the code against that spec, make the copy model what the code does, and pass the spec unchanged as --against. Check it with the config that its authors say it passes, and pass that config as --against-config unless it has the spec's file name. One mapping labels both models, so label states and steps from variables that both have. A label that reads a variable that only the copy has must test "name" in v first, and label the spec's states another way. When a model describes code, tie every variable and action to code that a reviewer can open, and take its name from that code. Make each action one indivisible step in the code. Put the file and line of the code that checks each condition of an action in a comment on that condition, as in \* pay.ts:120.