Abstract
Problems in commonsense and robot planning are approached by methods adapted from program synthesis research; planning is regarded as an application of automated deduction. To support this approach, we introduce a variant of situational logic, called plan theory, in which plans are explicit objects. A machine-oriented deductive-tableau inference system is adapted to plan theory. Equations and equivalences of the theory are built into a unification algorithm for the system. Frame axioms are built into the resolution rule. Special attention is paid to the derivation of conditional and recursive plans. Inductive proofs of theorems for even the simplest planning problems, such as clearing a block, have been found to require challenging generalizations.