Executable JavaScript as a Checkable Specification Language: A JS-SAM Case Study on SysMoBench
Can large language models write faithful formal specifications of real systems, and does it matter whether they write in a formal language they have seen rarely or in a mainstream language abundant in their training data? We study this on SysMoBench, which grades a generated specification in four phases, the decisive one replaying execution traces captured from the running system. We add JS-SAM, its first non-formal backend, in which a specification is executable JavaScript written in the SAM pattern, a pattern whose semantics mirror TLA+, and run a controlled comparison that separates three variables an ordinary head-to-head entangles: the language, the specification contract (the shape the model must fill), and the prompt. The study spans four frontier models and three systems (an operating-system spinlock, a distributed lock service, and the Etcd Raft consensus implementation), with counterexample-driven repair. Three findings emerge. First, conformance against the real system is the only phase that discriminates among models; internal consistency is inexpensive to satisfy, and a specification that looks right is not thereby right. Second, once the comparison is drawn like for like, the specification contract, not the language, governs fidelity: JavaScript in the shape of the TLA+ transition relation is as faithful as TLA+. Third, a minimal contract carries transcription but not semantic derivation: at consensus scale the difficulty becomes understanding the protocol, which no contract shape and no language supplies. We frame executable JavaScript as a checkable specification substrate that complements, rather than replaces, the verification TLA+ provides, and present the study as a case study.