Forage Solutions

Explore a solution space using ant colony optimization principles — deploying independent hypotheses as scouts, reinforcing promising approaches through evidence, detecting diminishing returns, and knowing when to abandon a strategy and explore elsewhere.

When to Use

• Facing a problem with multiple plausible approaches and no clear winner
• When the first approach tried is not working but alternatives are unclear
• Debugging with no obvious root cause — multiple hypotheses need parallel investigation
• Searching a codebase for the source of a behavior when the location is unknown
• When previous solution attempts have converged prematurely on a suboptimal approach
• Complementing build-coherence when the solution space must be explored before a decision is made

Inputs

• Required: Problem description or goal (what are we foraging for?)
• Required: Current state of knowledge (what is already known?)
• Optional: Previous approaches tried and their outcomes
• Optional: Constraints on exploration (time budget, tool availability)