HeuristicLib

"A modern, reimagined library for heuristic and evolutionary algorithms"

This is the spiritual successor to HeuristicLab:

• Library first: Focus on a well-designed API that is intuitive to use.
• Focused scope: Does less, but does it well.
• Modern C#: Built with the latest C# features.
• Open: Be usable from other ecosystems like Python.

HeuristicLib is currently in an early alpha stage. Architecture and public APIs may change when a stronger design is justified.

Steering docs

• AGENTS.md is the repository-wide contributor contract for humans and AI agents.
• docs/design-goals.md records the durable design principles and clarifies which current patterns are still provisional.

Noticeable differences to HeuristicLab:

• No GUI
  • HeuristicLib focuses on being a library first.
• No operator graph
  • Write algorithms in plain C# code.
• No serialization
  • Only key datastructures (e.g., algorithm configurations or ISolutions) are serializable.

Development Setup

This project supports multiple development environments:

• Visual Studio: Full IDE support for .NET development.
• .NET Dev Container: A containerized environment with .NET SDK, Node.js, npm, ESLint, Git, and common CLI tools pre-installed.

Setting DevContainer

Use the "Dev Containers: Open Folder in Container" command and wait for the container to build and initialize.

Prerequisites:

• Docker container environment set up
• Visual Studio Code or compatible IDE
• C# (.NET) extension installed

Quick Start:

dotnet build
dotnet test
dotnet publish