A computable representation of the physical laboratory enables verifiable workflows

arXiv:2609.03621v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Making science computable requires representations of both scientific knowledge and the physical world in which scientific claims are tested.

A computable representation of the physical laboratory is established through typed research objects, capability-bound operations and a compositional workflow algebra.

It provides the physical-world counterpart to machine-readable knowledge, expressing workflows as programs over evolving laboratory states with explicit dependencies, decisions, iteration and concurrency. The representation was implemented in a modular agentic robotic laboratory by binding formal operations to executable Function Skills.

For diverse scientific intents, capability-relative workflows were generated, while stateful simulation propagated object transformations and verified operation preconditions and laboratory constraints before dispatch.

The proposed representation and its engineering framework jointly establish a general computational interface between agent reasoning and capability-bound physical transformations, providing a foundation for end-to-end autonomous scientific discovery.