---
slug: "BeamSearch"
name: "BeamSearch"
type: "Strategy"
layer: "Mind"
ref: "BeamSearch#3457"
sema_id: "sema:BeamSearch#mh:SHA-256:345791c047f0e97dbef89d2d16e6cd67634768cebe523cef44e54a6eacec622b"
tags: ["Mind","Strategy"]
updated: 2026-11-11
mindscape: "bootstrap"
index_url: https://mindscape.pages.dev/bootstrap/index.json
url: https://mindscape.pages.dev/bootstrap/BeamSearch/
related: ["Queue","Rank","Select","SolverNode"]
---

# BeamSearch

Width-limited heuristic search

Layer: Mind · Category: Strategy

## Mechanism

A heuristic search algorithm that explores a graph by expanding the most promising [SolverNode](https://mindscape.pages.dev/bootstrap/SolverNode.md)s in a limited set (the beam). It manages a [Queue](https://mindscape.pages.dev/bootstrap/Queue.md) of fixed size 'k'. At each step, it generates all successors of all nodes in the beam, [Rank](https://mindscape.pages.dev/bootstrap/Rank.md)s them, and [Select](https://mindscape.pages.dev/bootstrap/Select.md)s the top 'k' for the next iteration.

## Invariants

- Breadth Constraint: Active nodes never exceed Beam Width.
- Optimality: The K nodes selected are the highest ranked.

## Failure modes

—

## Parameters

- `beam_width` (Integer, [1, 100]): Number of parallel paths to keep

## Builds on

- [Queue](https://mindscape.pages.dev/bootstrap/Queue.md) (Infrastructure; References)
- [Rank](https://mindscape.pages.dev/bootstrap/Rank.md) (Infrastructure; References)
- [Select](https://mindscape.pages.dev/bootstrap/Select.md) (Infrastructure; References)
- [SolverNode](https://mindscape.pages.dev/bootstrap/SolverNode.md) (Society; References)

## Used by

—

## Identity

- Sema ID: `sema:BeamSearch#mh:SHA-256:345791c047f0e97dbef89d2d16e6cd67634768cebe523cef44e54a6eacec622b`
- Ref: `BeamSearch#3457`
- Supersedes:
  - `sema:BeamSearch#mh:SHA-256:d2fb9185247c76aa1fd102c5dd6d8a425fa2de767fe9009bb50b71c6ead3d4a1`
  - `sema:BeamSearch#mh:SHA-256:5a3460aa9dc10ab22ddf87f740cb0dc1166e96d7d07fd31bf312cf8b35b1e559`
  - `sema:BeamSearch#mh:SHA-256:70d31a67347fab104678e9d6038acfd4b42b5c46967c71d6090b443b0a27fd14`
  - `sema:BeamSearch#mh:SHA-256:fc0a0d78a67aeda031b4316da9d81b9918064f81e06ceeb198ebfd30976e9b0b`
  - `sema:BeamSearch#mh:SHA-256:899fde8c1b5bd77173ee54438460d1281eeb34cf54f3033308e8f4a709828815`
  - `sema:BeamSearch#mh:SHA-256:d80bc09f086873a86e84d200f78ccc9bcb3bd111a7901f20719b050e546bb7fc`

## Links

- [Pattern page](https://mindscape.pages.dev/bootstrap/BeamSearch/)
- [View in the interactive graph](https://mindscape.pages.dev/bootstrap/#BeamSearch)
- [JSON](https://mindscape.pages.dev/bootstrap/BeamSearch.json)
- [Index of all patterns](https://mindscape.pages.dev/bootstrap/index.json)