Accelerating Syntax-Guided Program Synthesis by Optimizing Domain-Specific Languages

Syntax-guided program synthesis relies on domain-specific languages (DSLs) to constrain the search space and improve efficiency. However, manually designing optimal DSLs is challenging and often results in suboptimal performance. In this paper, we propose AMaze, a novel framework that automatically optimizes DSLs to accelerate synthesis. AMaze iteratively refines a DSL by identifying key program fragments, termed feature components, whose enumeration ranks correlate with synthesis time. Using a dynamic-programming-based algorithm to calculate enumeration ranks of feature components and a machine learning model based on them, AMaze estimates synthesis cost instead of directly invoking the synthesizer, which is impractical due to high computational cost. We evaluate AMaze on state-of-the-art synthesizers, including DryadSynth, Duet, Polygen, and EUsolver, across multiple domains. Empirical results demonstrate that AMaze achieves up to 4.35X speedup, effectively reducing synthesis time while maintaining expressiveness.

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Publication Details

Journal
Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages
Published
2026-01-08
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1145/3776679
Primary Topic
Software Engineering Research
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
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article

Accelerating Syntax-Guided Program Synthesis by Optimizing Domain-Specific Languages

Zhentao Ye, Ruyi Ji, Yuqi Xiong, Xin Zhang
Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages
Software Engineering Research
article

Accelerating Syntax-Guided Program Synthesis by Optimizing Domain-Specific Languages

Zhentao Ye, Ruyi Ji, Yuqi Xiong, Xin Zhang
article en

Abstract

Syntax-guided program synthesis relies on domain-specific languages (DSLs) to constrain the search space and improve efficiency. However, manually designing optimal DSLs is challenging and often results in suboptimal performance. In this paper, we propose AMaze, a novel framework that automatically optimizes DSLs to accelerate synthesis. AMaze iteratively refines a DSL by identifying key program fragments, termed feature components, whose enumeration ranks correlate with synthesis time. Using a dynamic-programming-based algorithm to calculate enumeration ranks of feature components and a machine learning model based on them, AMaze estimates synthesis cost instead of directly invoking the synthesizer, which is impractical due to high computational cost. We evaluate AMaze on state-of-the-art synthesizers, including DryadSynth, Duet, Polygen, and EUsolver, across multiple domains. Empirical results demonstrate that AMaze achieves up to 4.35X speedup, effectively reducing synthesis time while maintaining expressiveness.

Proceedings of the ACM on Programming LanguagesVol. 10(POPL)
Peking University (CN)
Openalex Percentile: Top 96%
Software Engineering Research
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Accelerating Syntax-Guided Program Synthesis by Optimizing Domain-Specific Languages — Zhentao Ye, Ruyi Ji, et al. · Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages (2026) | TGRS Research Map | TGRS