Research map / Learning theory and algorithms / Combinatorial and search optimization
Search for program synthesis
Guides program synthesis with learned and distribution-based search over candidate programs.
38 accepted papers at ICML, NeurIPS, ICLR, CVPR and AAAI (2016–2026) · an approach in Combinatorial and search optimization, keyword cluster “planning · search algorithm · tree search”
State History Tried Preprints Who Export
Where it stands
Not enough benchmark data Fewer than four papers report the same benchmark, so there is no record to follow.
8 papers in 2023–24 and 4 in 2025–26 (at ICML, NeurIPS, ICLR, CVPR and AAAI); its share of the topic shrank, from 2.3% to 1.1%.
How this is decided
A benchmark is tracked when at least four papers of this approach report their own method on the same dataset and metric in at least two different years. Its record is the best number reported up to 2024 compared with the best reported in 2025–26: still improving means at least 1% better, flat means at most 0.2% better with at least two papers from 2025–26 trying. Numbers on a different scale from the rest (a fraction among percentages) and far outliers are left out. Results come from different papers with different setups, so they are signals, not head-to-head comparisons. The share of papers is counted at ICML, NeurIPS, ICLR, CVPR and AAAI.
How it got here
Most cited paper of each year
- 2016 · Learning to Branch in Mixed Integer Programming (AAAI 2016 · 306 citations)
- 2018 · Neural-Guided Deductive Search for Real-Time Program Synthesis from Examples (ICLR 2018 · 70 citations)
- 2019 · Write, Execute, Assess: Program Synthesis with a REPL (NeurIPS 2019 · 59 citations)
- 2020 · Synthesizing Action Sequences for Modifying Model Decisions (AAAI 2020 · 19 citations)
- 2021 · Representing Partial Programs with Blended Abstract Semantics (ICLR 2021 · 8 citations)
- 2022 · Simulation-guided Beam Search for Neural Combinatorial Optimization (NeurIPS 2022 · 21 citations)
- 2023 · Electrophysiological Brain Source Imaging via Combinatorial Search with Provable Optimality (AAAI 2023 · 7 citations)
- 2024 · Program Synthesis with Best-First Bottom-Up Search (Abstract Reprint) (AAAI 2024 · 0 citations)
- 2025 · Eco Search: A No-delay Best-First Search Algorithm for Program Synthesis (AAAI 2025 · 0 citations)
- 2026 · Guaranteed Optimal Compositional Explanations for Neurons (ICML 2026 · 0 citations)
Earliest papers here
- Learning to Branch in Mixed Integer Programming (AAAI 2016 · 306 citations)
- Learning Simple Algorithms from Examples (ICML 2016 · 23 citations)
- Towards Clause-Learning State Space Search: Learning to Recognize Dead-Ends (AAAI 2016 · 17 citations)
What has been tried
35 papers here report 327 measured changes (a component added, removed or swapped, compared with a baseline): helped 62%, no clear effect 11%, hurt 20%, mixed 7%. Papers mostly publish changes that helped, so "helped" is over-represented.
Ablations in recent papers
| What was changed | Measured on | Result | Effect | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| add bucketing | DeepCoder integer list tasks · tasks solved | 13 more tasks | Helped | Eco Search: A No-delay Best-First Search Algorithm for Program Synthesis (AAAI 2025 · 0 citations) |
| Remove the ResNet-18 backbone and optimize solely with the loss prediction module | CIFAR-100, SVHN, and OrganCMNIST · accuracy | Hurt | AutoAL: Automated Active Learning with Differentiable Query Strategy Search (ICML 2025 · 0 citations) |
Recent preprints
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Who publishes on it
Institutions on the most papers of this approach since 2023 (of 12 papers; from OpenAlex and the papers' affiliations).
- University of Alberta · 2 papers
Use it
Download BibTeX of 25 key papersOpen the topic in the interactive map
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Related approaches
Same keyword cluster
- Heuristic and local search algorithms (147 papers)
- Classical and HTN planning (145 papers)
- Monte Carlo tree search (55 papers)
Elsewhere in the topic
- Logic and answer set programming theory (150 papers)
- Unsupervised neural combinatorial optimization (113 papers)
- Constrained neural network optimization (111 papers)
- Decision-focused optimization (97 papers)
- Multi-objective optimization (93 papers)
- Structure and complexity of constraint reasoning (92 papers)
- Predict-then-optimize learning (89 papers)
- SAT and model counting solvers (89 papers)
Benchmark numbers, ablations and baseline numbers are extracted by AI from each paper's full text and can be wrong; the paper is the authority. Data: results index of 2026-11-02, citation counts from OpenAlex (2026-10-09).