Zero-Knowledge Circuits: Verification Checklist for Production Teams

ZK circuits move critical business logic into a constraint system. The biggest risk is not only correctness, but also enforceability of every assumption. This checklist is the baseline we apply when building Lean models and conformance harnesses for real-world circuits.

Constraint coverage

• Every public input must be constrained exactly once.
• All intermediate values must be range-checked or otherwise bounded.
• Assertions should map to explicit constraint statements, not comments.

Witness hygiene

The witness must never contain secrets that are not explicitly intended to be disclosed. If the witness includes derived values, ensure they cannot be recombined to leak key material.

Proof system assumptions

Confirm that the circuit is aligned with the proof system constraints: field size, curve pairing limits, and recursion limits all matter. If the circuit uses custom gates, verify those gate definitions independently.

Model-based conformance

Build a small formal model of the circuit logic and use it as the oracle for property tests and differential fuzzing. If the implementation diverges from the model, you get a minimized counterexample instead of a vague mismatch.

Operational integration

Build negative tests that fail the verifier. Production integration should include telemetry on proof generation failures and explicit alerting for any verification anomalies.

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