Complete CALM: A Coordination Criterion for Specifications

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Authors: Joseph M. Hellerstein
Cited by: 0

Abstract

The CALM theorem connects coordination-freedom to monotonicity, but is tied to relational transducers and set-inclusion growth. We generalize it to arbitrary concurrent specifications. A specification maps execution histories to outcome sets under a declared refinement order; we prove it admits coordination-free implementation if and only if its outcomes are monotone (\emph{Complete CALM}). The criterion subsumes CALM, CRDTs, I-confluence, and HATs as instances, enables verification of proper coordination, and yields a \emph{Complete CAP} companion: a specification admits a consistent, available, partition-tolerant implementation if and only if it is distributed-monotone.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Distributed systems and fault tolerance Logic programming and type systems Formal Methods in Verification

Publication details

Journal / source
arXiv (Cornell University)
Publication date
10 February 2026
Language
EN
Document type
Preprint