CP-SynC: Multi-Agent Zero-Shot Constraint Modeling in MiniZinc with Synthesized Checkers

arXiv cs.AI / 5/5/2026

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Key Points

  • The paper presents CP-SynC, a multi-agent workflow that converts natural-language constraint problems into executable MiniZinc models in a zero-shot setting.
  • It uses separate “modeling” agents to generate and refine candidate models and “validation” agents that synthesize semantic checkers to verify correctness beyond surface-level matching.
  • To reduce errors and noise from individual LLM outputs, CP-SynC runs multiple modeling trajectories in parallel and aggregates multi-agent evidence to select the final model.
  • Experiments on a benchmark of 100 constraint programming problems show CP-SynC significantly outperforms existing MiniZinc modeling baselines.
  • The work targets the core bottleneck of semantic mistakes when LLMs translate problem statements without oracle validation at test time.

Abstract

Constraint Programming (CP) is a powerful paradigm for solving combinatorial problems, yet translating natural language problem descriptions into executable models remains a significant bottleneck. While Large Language Models (LLMs) show promise in automating this translation, they often struggle with subtle semantic errors in the absence of oracle validation at test time. To address this, we introduce CP-SynC (Constraint Programming modeling with Synthesized Checkers), a multi-agent workflow for zero-shot constraint modeling in MiniZinc. CP-SynC coordinates modeling agents that generate and refine candidate models and validation agents that synthesize semantic checkers to provide feedback on semantic correctness. To mitigate noise inherent in individual LLM outputs, CP-SynC explores multiple modeling trajectories in parallel and employs selection agents to select the final model via multi-agent evidence aggregation. Extensive experiments on a benchmark of 100 CP problems show that CP-SynC substantially outperforms existing baselines in MiniZinc modeling.