enwordle
Using information theory, this is the optimal wordle player. It is written in Rust and runs on the command-line.
Theory
When you pick a word in Wordle, the game responds with 1 of 243 responses. There are five spaces and three possible responses for each (not present, wrong place, right place). 5^3 = 243. You get the most information about the word if each response is equally likely — that is, in the language of information theory, the response has the most possible entropy.
At each step, this program figures out the words that will evoke the most entropy from Wordle. It even tells you how many bits of information you are likely to get from playing the word.
This is the optimal strategy if you assume all the words in the list are equally likely to be the answer. Other people have done similar systems that do not make this assumption: https://github.com/jonhoo/roget
Usage
I usually pick the first word on the list that I think the New York Times might actually use.
To run
cargo run --release
Example: playing for "brain":
Read 12947 words. Making table...
12947 possibilities
1 tares: 6.20 bits
2 lares: 6.15 bits
3 rales: 6.12 bits
4 rates: 6.10 bits
5 teras: 6.08 bits
6 nares: 6.07 bits
7 soare: 6.06 bits
8 tales: 6.06 bits
9 reais: 6.05 bits
What word did you pick? (0 to quit)
4
What did wordle return? (0 = not present, 1 = wrong place, 2 = right place)
11000
306 possibilities
1 brail: 4.43 bits
2 drail: 4.41 bits
3 grail: 4.40 bits
4 brain: 4.38 bits
5 groan: 4.38 bits
6 coria: 4.36 bits
7 moria: 4.36 bits
8 drain: 4.36 bits
9 aroid: 4.35 bits
What word did you pick? (0 to quit)
3
What did wordle return? (0 = not present, 1 = wrong place, 2 = right place)
02220
6 possibilities
1 drain: 1.79 bits
2 brain: 1.79 bits
3 braid: 1.79 bits
4 craic: 1.25 bits
5 vraic: 1.25 bits
6 fraim: 0.65 bits
What word did you pick? (0 to quit)
1
What did wordle return? (0 = not present, 1 = wrong place, 2 = right place)
02222
1 possibilities
1 brain: 0.00 bits
No more possibilities