List of search programs

This page is under construction. Sorry for the inconvenience.

This is a list of search programs used with cellular automata.

Modern programs

Name	Author(s)	Rulespace	Can find	Description	Link	Year (creation - last updated)
apgsearch	Adam P. Goucher	Versatile	Natural/semi-natural objects	Runs random seeds in an infinite universe and censuses the results. Results are uploaded to Catagolue.	GitLab repo	2015 - 2024
apgspaceinvaders	jedlimlx	Versatile	Natural/semi-natural objects	Modification of apgsearch that accepts two additional parameters: maximum population and maximum number of generations. Soups that exceed these maxima are discarded, which allows for running explosive or almost explosive rules.	GitHub repo	2022 - 2024
Barrister	Mitchell Riley	Life only	Catalysed reactions, signal circuitry	An advanced, faster version of Bellman/dr2 using LifeAPI.	GitHub repo	2022 - 2025
CatForce	Michael Simkin and Mitchell Riley	Life only	Catalysed reactions, oscillators	Searches for catalyses by systematically placing catalysts next to an active region. Allows for transparent catalysts and symmetrical reactions.	GitHub repo	2015 - 2022
EnumPattEvo (EPE)	AforAmpere	Versatile	Rules supporting specific evolutions of patterns.	Enumerates all stable patterns with set parameters whose evolutions contain a given starting pattern in various CA rulespaces.	GitHub repo	2020 - 2026
ikpx2	Adam P. Goucher	Versatile	Spaceships	Short for Incremental Knightship Partial eXtender, searches for spaceships using several different algorithms. Its predecessor, ikpx, was used to find Sir Robin. Can automatically submit to Catagolue.	GitLab repo	2020 - 2024
LLS	Oscar Cunningham	Isotropic	Small patterns	Versatile program which can solve many CA search problems, such as finding oscillators or predecessors to patterns. The method converts CA problems to boolean satisfiability problems, then feeds them to a SAT solver.	GitLab repo	2018 - 2025
LLSSS	Keith Amling	Isotropic	Spaceships	A Rust-based spaceship searcher with more unique functionality compared to other spaceship search programs.	Codeberg repo	2022 - 2026
qfind	Matthias Merzenich	Isotropic	Orthogonal spaceships	A multithreaded tree spaceship searcher which employs ideas from gfind and ntzfind. Used to find 139P7H1V0.	GitHub repo	2019 - 2025
rlifesrc	AlephAlpha	Generations, Isotropic	Small patterns	A versatile program which can find small oscillators, spaceships, and other patterns. Also available as a web-based program.	GitHub repo Webpage	2019 - 2023
Silk	Adam P. Goucher	Life only	signal circuitry	A CGoL drifter search program that employs CUDA and parallelism to search up to thousands of times faster than Barrister, hence the name "silk" to reflect a senior barrister.	GitLab repo	2024 - 2025
spark_search	Chris Cain	Life only	Glider synthesis components	Golly Python script for finding glider synthesis components with a desired effect.	GitHub repo python3 version at end of post	2019 - 2019

Historical programs

The below list contains programs which are old and not in common use due to being outclassed by modern programs.

Name	Author	Rulespace	Can find	Description	Link	Year (creation - last updated)
CollisionsSearch	Guam	Life only	Catalysed reactions	A Windows-only GUI search program with a similar algorithm to CatForce. Used to discover the semi-Snark along with many new Herschel conduits.	Forum post	2013 - 2016
gsearch	David Eppstein	Outer-totalistic	Natural objects	Performs a brute force search of all patterns fitting within a small rectangle. Recognizes spaceships, oscillators, unstable oscillators, replicators, and some puffers.	Source code	19?? - 1998
RandomAgar	Gabriel Nivasch	Outer-totalistic	Agars	Generates random spatially periodic patterns, and runs them until they oscillate, with support for all symmetries.	Forum post with ZIP containing Windows executable Google Drive link with ZIP containing source code	2002 - 2014

See also

• Tutorials/Software