How we make our daily puzzle hints
Our daily pages cover 20 puzzles, from Wordle and Connections to Pips and Bracket City. Each page is built to help you solve the puzzle yourself: small hints first, the answer last, and nothing given away until you ask for it. Here is where the answers come from, how the hints are made, how we check them and how we fix mistakes.
Where the answers come from
Our answers come from each day's official puzzle (Spelling Bee, below, is the one exception). For some games our system reads the official puzzle data as soon as it is available; for the others an editor enters the answer by hand. Either way, the byline shows when the page was last updated.
Our days follow New York time (ET). A today page switches to the new puzzle at midnight ET, and until the new answer is in, it shows the previous puzzle, labelled as such. If you play in Australia or East Asia, your next puzzle may arrive before ours does: pick your date from the strip at the top of the page or from the game's archive.
How the hints are built
Our own software writes the hints from the answer, using the same word lists and dictionary as our solvers, and they always run from vague to specific. Editors can add a hint of their own where a generated one falls flat.
- Wordle, Quordle, Octordle and other one-word puzzles: how many vowels the answer has, whether a letter repeats, its part of speech, a clue taken from its dictionary definition and, last, its first letter. The answer itself opens one letter at a time.
- Connections: each group opens in three steps: a hint, then the category, then its words one by one.
- Strands: the official theme clue, hints that lead up to the spangram's first letter, then the spangram and the theme words.
- Spelling Bee: a letter-by-length grid, a two-letter list, the pangrams and the full word list. Until the official list is in, the page shows possible words from our dictionary and says so.
Dictionary clues come from Princeton's WordNet 3.1, with the answer removed; a definition that would still give it away is skipped. The Wordle page also rates each answer from Easy to Hard, based on repeated letters, uncommon letters such as J, Q, X and Z, how common the word is and whether it was on the original Wordle answer list.
How we check every entry
An entry has to pass the same checks before it can be published, whether it was read from the official puzzle or typed by an editor: the right number of letters for the game, four groups of four different words for Connections, six outer letters and a center letter that every word uses for Spelling Bee, and rules of the same kind for every other game. An entry that fails is not saved. When an official puzzle can't be read or fails these checks, an editor is alerted, and that day stays off the page until it is fixed.
Spoilers
Page titles, descriptions, share images and our RSS feed never give an answer away. On the page, the answer to the day's puzzle stays hidden until you choose to reveal it.
Corrections
Most hints ask "Was this hint helpful?", and editors can see the votes for each puzzle. When we correct an entry, its "Last updated" time changes, and an editor's note at the top of the puzzle can explain what changed. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.
Independence
WordFinderZ is an independent site. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by The New York Times, Merriam-Webster, LinkedIn or any other puzzle publisher. Game names only say which puzzle a page covers, and every trademark belongs to its owner.