Strands helper
Find or validate paths, then test whether candidate words can cover the remaining board.
Your puzzle
A little help
Enter your puzzle or try the original example. You choose when to open candidates, explanations and complete results.
How the Strands helper works
- Strands uses eight rows of six letters and permits diagonal adjacency.
- Paths cannot reuse a cell, and confirmed words cannot overlap.
- A full solution uses every active cell once.
Find or validate paths, then test whether candidate words can cover the remaining board. Work from the information you have already revealed; this helper does not fetch an official daily answer.
Results use the puzzle you enter; they are not verified daily answers. Your entries stay out of public URLs.
A path is only the first check
An adjacent spelling can be geometrically valid and still steal letters needed elsewhere. Ordinary candidate search and single-path validation remain available; full-cover analysis adds the all-cells constraint.
Why every path matters
The same spelling can wind through repeated letters in several ways. Cover analysis retains distinct paths instead of committing to the first occurrence. A placement required in every candidate cover is stronger than a dictionary match, but its proof still depends on the chosen vocabulary.
Original example and limits
The example uses ordinary words arranged in simple rows. It is a synthetic geometry exercise, not a publisher theme. A unique cover of those words says nothing about missing alternatives in the official answer list.
Handle the game-specific boundary
An opposite-edge path may be a Strands spangram candidate but other theme words can also touch opposite edges. Wend usually uses varied lengths, yet its designer explicitly allows exceptions; the helper does not invent a unique-length constraint.
Supported puzzle types
- player-entered state
Scope of this helper
- No independent dictionary can establish the official theme, word list or accepted spangram.
- Full covers use each candidate word at most once; bounds are 120,000 search nodes, 5,000 paths and 100 covers.
- No forced path is reported after truncated path enumeration or cover search.
Play the original at New York Times. This is an unofficial helper with no publisher affiliation.
Rules and reference sources
- Official game identity — checked 2026-10-04
- Primary computational formalisation — checked 2026-10-04
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