Hillel Wayne clarifies the specific capabilities and limitations of TLA+ model checking in a recent analysis. The piece details which system properties can be rigorously proven versus those that remain out of scope for current tooling. It serves as a practical guide for engineers deciding when to apply formal methods to distributed system design.
- TLA+ excels at verifying state-machine correctness and concurrency safety.
- Model checking cannot prove performance, liveness, or absence of deadlocks.
- Use TLA+ for invariants and safety, not for throughput or latency guarantees.
- Formal verification requires precise abstraction to avoid false positives.
- Combine TLA+ with runtime monitoring for comprehensive system assurance.
