A fast, POSIX-compliant terminal tool and algorithmic solver designed for Merriam-Webster’s daily Blossom puzzle. Calculate optimal bonus letter petal multipliers, pangram bonuses, and scoring paths in milliseconds.
Test out letter combinations and explore point projections directly in your browser before running queries in your terminal.
Matches exact scoring formulas implemented in the CLI script
The blossom utility computes point yields based precisely on Merriam-Webster’s official formula:
A pangram uses every single distinct letter provided in the flower (the center letter plus all petal letters).
In Blossom, each round has designated bonus petals. When playing with a specific bonus letter, each occurrence provides an extra 5 points!
Run the Blossom solver directly from your command line on any Linux, macOS, or WSL environment.
The repository provides a self-installing bootstrap script that clones the tool or installs it to your local environment:
curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/joshuacox/blossom/refs/heads/main/bootstrap.sh | bashPass the required CENTER_LETTER followed by the surrounding PETAL_LETTERS:
When you play a turn dedicated to a particular bonus petal letter, provide it as the optional 3rd argument:
Use your custom dictionary file or run the uber_blossom script to evaluate all petals concurrently:
Understanding the underlying Bash pipeline, caching layers, and regex filters.
The script operates via high-speed grep streams. It constructs negative-character classes [^$ALL_LETTERS] to purge any invalid characters while requiring inclusion of the center letter. It also eliminates words under 4 characters prior to score evaluation.
Evaluated dictionary sets are cached at /tmp/blossom_cache/$ALL_LETTERS.txt, enabling instant score permutations across multiple bonus letter turns without re-scanning system dictionaries.