Same coeffect, different base: Connecting two dominant approaches to graded types

Graded types provide a way to augment a type system with fine-grained information, e.g., to track side effects or context dependence and resource use (called coeffects). Graded types for coeffects have found their way into languages such as Haskell, Idris, and Granule, enabling resourceful reasoning via coeffect analysis with varying levels of generality. Two separate lineages of graded coeffect system have emerged in the last decade: those in which coeffect annotations are pervasive, requiring annotations on function types (which we call graded-base) and those in which coeffects are added by way of a graded modal type operator atop linear types (which we call linear-base). The latter has its origins in Girard’s Linear Logic which has been a rich humus for programming language research focused on resources, whereas the graded-base approach emerged in the mid-2010s, seeing rapid adoption in programming language theory and practice, e.g. in QTT and Linear Haskell. The relationship between these two styles has however remained an open question. We answer this question by giving translations between pairs of calculi of both lineages that we prove type-, grade- and operational-semantics preserving. We show that the same notions of context dependence can be expressed in either style, building a bridge between the two lineages that enables transfer of results and ideas, while helping language designers to make better informed choices.