Message-ID: <20251120145835.3833031-6-elver@google.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2025 15:49:06 +0100
From: Marco Elver <elver@...gle.com>
To: elver@...gle.com, Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>, 
	Boqun Feng <boqun.feng@...il.com>, Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>, Will Deacon <will@...nel.org>
Cc: "David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>, Luc Van Oostenryck <luc.vanoostenryck@...il.com>, 
	Chris Li <sparse@...isli.org>, "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...nel.org>, 
	Alexander Potapenko <glider@...gle.com>, Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>, Bart Van Assche <bvanassche@....org>, 
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	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-mm@...ck.org, 
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Subject: [PATCH v4 04/35] Documentation: Add documentation for Compiler-Based
 Context Analysis

Adds documentation in Documentation/dev-tools/context-analysis.rst, and
adds it to the index.

Signed-off-by: Marco Elver <elver@...gle.com>
---
v4:
* Rename capability -> context analysis.

v2:
* Remove cross-reference to Sparse, since we plan to remove Sparse
  support anyway.
* Mention __no_context_analysis should be avoided.
---
 Documentation/dev-tools/context-analysis.rst | 145 +++++++++++++++++++
 Documentation/dev-tools/index.rst            |   1 +
 2 files changed, 146 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 Documentation/dev-tools/context-analysis.rst

diff --git a/Documentation/dev-tools/context-analysis.rst b/Documentation/dev-tools/context-analysis.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..a15436e288fd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/dev-tools/context-analysis.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,145 @@
+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+.. Copyright (C) 2025, Google LLC.
+
+.. _context-analysis:
+
+Compiler-Based Context Analysis
+===============================
+
+Context Analysis is a language extension, which enables statically checking
+that required contexts are active (or inactive) by acquiring and releasing
+user-definable "context guards". An obvious application is lock-safety checking
+for the kernel's various synchronization primitives (each of which represents a
+"context guard"), and checking that locking rules are not violated.
+
+The Clang compiler currently supports the full set of context analysis
+features. To enable for Clang, configure the kernel with::
+
+    CONFIG_WARN_CONTEXT_ANALYSIS=y
+
+The feature requires Clang 22 or later.
+
+The analysis is *opt-in by default*, and requires declaring which modules and
+subsystems should be analyzed in the respective `Makefile`::
+
+    CONTEXT_ANALYSIS_mymodule.o := y
+
+Or for all translation units in the directory::
+
+    CONTEXT_ANALYSIS := y
+
+It is possible to enable the analysis tree-wide, however, which will result in
+numerous false positive warnings currently and is *not* generally recommended::
+
+    CONFIG_WARN_CONTEXT_ANALYSIS_ALL=y
+
+Programming Model
+-----------------
+
+The below describes the programming model around using context guard types.
+
+.. note::
+   Enabling context analysis can be seen as enabling a dialect of Linux C with
+   a Context System. Some valid patterns involving complex control-flow are
+   constrained (such as conditional acquisition and later conditional release
+   in the same function).
+
+Context analysis is a way to specify permissibility of operations to depend on
+context guards being held (or not held). Typically we are interested in
+protecting data and code in a critical section by requiring a specific context
+to be active, for example by holding a specific lock. The analysis ensures that
+callers cannot perform an operation without the required context being active.
+
+Context guards are associated with named structs, along with functions that
+operate on struct instances to acquire and release the associated context
+guard.
+
+Context guards can be held either exclusively or shared. This mechanism allows
+assigning more precise privileges when a context is active, typically to
+distinguish where a thread may only read (shared) or also write (exclusive) to
+data guarded within a context.
+
+The set of contexts that are actually active in a given thread at a given point
+in program execution is a run-time concept. The static analysis works by
+calculating an approximation of that set, called the context environment. The
+context environment is calculated for every program point, and describes the
+set of contexts that are statically known to be active, or inactive, at that
+particular point. This environment is a conservative approximation of the full
+set of contexts that will actually be active in a thread at run-time.
+
+More details are also documented `here
+<https://clang.llvm.org/docs/ThreadSafetyAnalysis.html>`_.
+
+.. note::
+   Clang's analysis explicitly does not infer context guards acquired or
+   released by inline functions. It requires explicit annotations to (a) assert
+   that it's not a bug if a context guard is released or acquired, and (b) to
+   retain consistency between inline and non-inline function declarations.
+
+Supported Kernel Primitives
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+.. Currently the following synchronization primitives are supported:
+
+For context guards with an initialization function (e.g., `spin_lock_init()`),
+calling this function before initializing any guarded members or globals
+prevents the compiler from issuing warnings about unguarded initialization.
+
+Lockdep assertions, such as `lockdep_assert_held()`, inform the compiler's
+context analysis that the associated synchronization primitive is held after
+the assertion. This avoids false positives in complex control-flow scenarios
+and encourages the use of Lockdep where static analysis is limited. For
+example, this is useful when a function doesn't *always* require a lock, making
+`__must_hold()` inappropriate.
+
+Keywords
+~~~~~~~~
+
+.. kernel-doc:: include/linux/compiler-context-analysis.h
+   :identifiers: context_guard_struct
+                 token_context_guard token_context_guard_instance
+                 __guarded_by __pt_guarded_by
+                 __must_hold
+                 __must_not_hold
+                 __acquires
+                 __cond_acquires
+                 __releases
+                 __must_hold_shared
+                 __acquires_shared
+                 __cond_acquires_shared
+                 __releases_shared
+                 __acquire
+                 __release
+                 __cond_lock
+                 __acquire_shared
+                 __release_shared
+                 __cond_lock_shared
+                 __acquire_ret
+                 __acquire_shared_ret
+                 context_unsafe
+                 __context_unsafe
+                 disable_context_analysis enable_context_analysis
+
+.. note::
+   The function attribute `__no_context_analysis` is reserved for internal
+   implementation of context guard types, and should be avoided in normal code.
+
+Background
+----------
+
+Clang originally called the feature `Thread Safety Analysis
+<https://clang.llvm.org/docs/ThreadSafetyAnalysis.html>`_, with some keywords
+and documentation still using the thread-safety-analysis-only terminology. This
+was later changed and the feature became more flexible, gaining the ability to
+define custom "capabilities". Its foundations can be found in `Capability
+Systems <https://www.cs.cornell.edu/talc/papers/capabilities.pdf>`_, used to
+specify the permissibility of operations to depend on some "capability" being
+held (or not held).
+
+Because the feature is not just able to express capabilities related to
+synchronization primitives, and "capability" is already overloaded in the
+kernel, the naming chosen for the kernel departs from Clang's initial "Thread
+Safety" and "capability" nomenclature; we refer to the feature as "Context
+Analysis" to avoid confusion. The internal implementation still makes
+references to Clang's terminology in a few places, such as `-Wthread-safety`
+being the warning option that also still appears in diagnostic messages.
diff --git a/Documentation/dev-tools/index.rst b/Documentation/dev-tools/index.rst
index 4b8425e348ab..d864b3da4cc7 100644
--- a/Documentation/dev-tools/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/dev-tools/index.rst
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@ Documentation/process/debugging/index.rst
    checkpatch
    clang-format
    coccinelle
+   context-analysis
    sparse
    kcov
    gcov
-- 
2.52.0.rc1.455.g30608eb744-goog

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