Termination

Control when the solver stops — time limits, step counts, score targets, and composites.

Termination conditions tell the solver when to stop searching. You can set termination globally or per-phase.

Termination Types

Time-Based

[termination]
seconds_spent_limit = 300           # Stop after 5 minutes
minutes_spent_limit = 10            # Stop after 10 minutes

Step-Based

[termination]
step_count_limit = 100000           # Stop after 100k steps

Unimproved Time/Steps

Stop when no improvement has been found for a duration:

[termination]
unimproved_seconds_spent_limit = 60        # No improvement for 60s
unimproved_step_count_limit = 10000        # No improvement for 10k steps

Score-Based

Stop when a target score is reached:

[termination]
best_score_limit = "0hard/-100soft"    # Stop when feasible with soft ≥ -100

Composite Termination

Combine multiple conditions — by default, the solver stops when any condition is met:

[termination]
seconds_spent_limit = 300
best_score_limit = "0hard/0soft"
# Stops after 5 minutes OR when a perfect score is found

Per-Phase Termination

Each phase can have its own termination:

[[phases]]
type = "construction_heuristic"
# No termination needed — runs until all variables are assigned

[[phases]]
type = "local_search"
[phases.acceptor]
type = "late_acceptance"
late_acceptance_size = 400

[phases.termination]
unimproved_step_count_limit = 10000

Programmatic Termination

Use SolverManager::terminate_early(job_id) to stop a job from code:

static MANAGER: SolverManager<Schedule> = SolverManager::new();

let (job_id, rx) = MANAGER.solve(problem);

// Later...
MANAGER.terminate_early(job_id);

See Also


Last modified March 14, 2026: docs: align Rust API examples with real v0.5.18 solverforge-rs codebase (244acb3)