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+- Title: User-defined rewrite rules
+- Drivers: Gaëtan Gilbert, Nicolas Tabareau, Théo Winterhalter
+
+----
+
+# Summary
+
+We want to add user-defined rewrite rules to Coq. They would complement the
+axiom mechanism of Coq by allowing users to define their own computation rules.
+
+# Motivation
+
+At the moment users can extend the theory of Coq by assuming extra constructions
+using `Axiom` but they cannot assume any computational behaviour.
+With rewrite rules, users could also postulate new reduction rules.
+This could have various use cases:
+- Adding new reduction rules to neutral terms (eg. allowing both `0 + n` and
+`n + 0` to reduce to `n`).
+- Postulating otherwise rejected inductive types with computation rules for
+their eliminator (eg. quotient types or higher inductive types).
+- Defining functions using a mechanism more powerful that the usual
+pattern-matching.
+- Define extensions of CIC such as Exceptional Type Theory or Setoid Type Theory
+
+# Detailed design
+
+## Overview
+
+To ensure confluence and preservation of typing (subject reduction) we enforce
+constraints on rewrite rules. As such they have to be defined by blocks
+consisting of fresh symbols (axioms) and rewrite rules involving them.
+A tentative syntax is as follows:
+
+```coq
+Rewrite Block :=
+  s₁@{u₁} : T₁
+        ⋮
+  sₙ@{uₙ} : Tₙ
+with rules
+  lhs₁ := rhs₁
+        ⋮
+  lhsₙ := rhsₙ.
+```
+where terms `sᵢ` are called symbols, quantifying over universe declaration `uᵢ`
+and of type `Tᵢ`; the `rhsᵢ` are arbitrary terms and `lhsᵢ` obey the following
+syntax:
+```
+lhs ::= sₖ                                       one of the symbols
+      | lhs p                                    lhs applied to a pattern
+      | lhs .proj                                projection of a lhs
+      | match lhs with p₁ ... pₙ end             pattern-matching of a lhs
+```
+Note that in particular, a rewrite rule may only rewrite symbols that are
+declared together with it.
+
+In the case of pattern-matching, all the branches are patterns as well.
+Patterns are given by the following syntax (extending the already existing
+notion of patterns):
+
+```
+p ::= ?x y₁ ... yₙ         pattern variable (applied to all bound variables)
+    | C@{u} p₁ ... pₙ      constructor applied to patterns
+    | I@{u} p₁ ... pₙ      Inductive type constructor applied to patterns
+    | λ x : p₁, p₂         λ-abstraction over patterns
+    | ∀ x : p₁, p₂         Π-type of patterns
+    | !{t}                 type-forced term
+```
+
+Here we mention pattern variables. They are implicitly quantified over when
+defining a rewrite rule. Each variable must appear exactly once on the left-hand
+side (`lhs`) and can appear on the right-hand side (`rhs`) any number of times
+(including zero).
+
+The reduction of Coq is then extended with rules
+```
+⟦lhsᵢ⟧[σ] → rhsᵢ[σ]
+```
+where `σ` instantiates all of the pattern variables (as well as the universe
+levels) and where `⟦lhsᵢ⟧` traverses the whole `lhsᵢ` to interpret type-forced
+terms as fresh pattern variables (that are therefore unused in the rhs).
+
+Type-forced terms are there to give information to the pre-typer and to ensure
+that the rule is indeed type-preserving.
+
+Once a rewrite block is defined, a confluence checker based on parallel
+reduction and shown to be sound in MetaCoq will verify that the block
+introduction preserves confluence of the whole system, in a modular way
+(it doesn't have to recheck previously defined rewrite blocks).
+
+Rewrite rules are triggered when a term is stuck with respect to the regular
+rules of Coq.
+
+## Examples
+
+### Parallel plus
+
+One popular example is the definition of a parallel version of addition of
+natural numbers:
+
+```coq
+Rewrite Block :=
+  plus : nat -> nat -> nat ;
+with rules
+  plus 0 ?n := n ;
+  plus ?n 0 := n ;
+  plus (S ?n) ?m := S (plus n m) ;
+  plus ?n (S ?m) := S (plus n m).
+```
+
+### (Non-)linearity in practice
+
+To illustrate the use of type-forced terms (and explain why left-linearity of
+pattern variables is not such a restriction) we can show the artificial example
+of the `J`-eliminator.
+
+```coq
+Rewrite Block :=
+  J :
+    ∀ A (x : A) (P : ∀ (y : A), x = y → Type),
+      P x (eq_refl x) →
+      ∀ y (e : x = y), P y e ;
+with rules
+  J ?A ?x ?P ?p !{x} (@eq_refl !{A} !{x}) := p.
+```
+
+### Higher-inductive types
+
+HoTT users might want to use rewrite rules to define HIT rather than use the
+current notion of private inductive types.
+
+```coq
+Rewrite Block :=
+  S¹ : Type ;
+  base : S¹ ;
+  loop : base = base ;
+  elimS¹ : ∀ (P : S¹ → Type) (b : P base) (l : loop # b = b) x, P x ;
+  elimS¹ₗₒₒₚ : ∀ (P : S¹ → Type) (b : P base) (l : loop # b = b),
+                apD (elimS¹ P b l) loop = loop
+with rules
+  elimS¹ ?P ?b ?l base := b.
+```
+
+### Quotients
+
+We can also postulate quotients with a way to lift functions to the quotient.
+This example also illustrates how we could combine this syntax with notations.
+
+```coq
+Rewrite Block :=
+  Quotient : ∀ A, (A → A → Prop) → Type ;
+  proj : A → A // R ;
+  quot : ∀ x y, R x y → proj x = proj y ;
+  rec : ∀ {A R B} (f : A → B), (∀ x y, R x y → f x = f y) → A // R → B
+with rules
+  rec ?f ?q (proj ?x) := f x
+where
+  "A // R" := (Quotient A R).
+```
+
+## Possible extensions
+
+Coq [CEP#45]'s integration might make it possible to add rewrite rules to
+already defined symbols, such as addition.
+
+[CEP#45]: https://github.com/coq/ceps/pull/45
+
+## About trusted code base
+
+The addition of rewrite rules should not make the user fear about consistency
+of the system as a whole.
+Similarly to axioms and other consistency-breaking assumptions such as
+`Type : Type`, the use of rewrite rules should be reported by the command
+```
+Print Assumptions
+```
+
+Rewrite rules are not so different from axioms in that they might break
+consistency and canonicity, except that they introduce new computation rules
+and as such might also break termination. Any proof completed without them would
+still be entirely safe.
+
+# Drawbacks
+
+This proposal concerns unsafe rewrite rules. As such, uncareful rewrite rules
+could lead to infinite loops in the reduction machine or worse to anomalies
+(by breaking subject reduction for instance).
+More generally, rules can break confluence and result in incompleteness from
+the type checker which might reject conversion of two convertible terms in
+the extended theory.
+These drawbacks can be in part alleviated by implementing a modular confluence
+checker as advocated in the paper [The Taming of the Rew] and as is currently
+implemented in Agda by Jesper Cockx.
+
+[The Taming of the Rew]: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02901011
+
+# Alternatives
+
+The Agda implementation of rewrite rules is very much related to this.
+There were of course many other attempts to integrate rewrite rules in the past
+like Coq Modulo Theory and the work of Bruno Barras.
+
+# Unresolved questions