A Monadic Formalization of ML5

ML5 is a programming language for spatially distributed computing, based on a Curry-Howard correspondence with the modal logic S5. However, the ML5 programming language differs from the logic in several ways. In this paper, we give a semantic embedding of ML5 into the dependently typed programming language Agda, which both explains these discrepancies between ML5 and S5 and suggests some simplifications and generalizations of the language. Our embedding translates ML5 into a slightly different logic: intuitionistic S5 extended with a lax modality that encapsulates effectful computations in a monad. Rather than formalizing lax S5 as a proof theory, we embed it as a universe within the the dependently typed host language, with the universe elimination given by implementing the modal logic’s Kripke semantics.