openevolve CLAUDE.md

Repository instructions for OpenEvolve, an open-source coding agent that iteratively improves programs using evaluation results. They describe setup, tests, formatting, linting, runs, and checkpoint resumption.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use them to install development dependencies, run tests, format and lint code, start an evolution run, and resume one from a checkpoint.
Why use it?
They give contributors the commands and conventions needed to install, check, and operate the project consistently.

Instructions file

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add instructions/algorithmicsuperintelligence/openevolve/claude-md
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/algorithmicsuperintelligence/openevolve
Per session 880 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 880 The same file — it is already loaded in full.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00880 $0.00880
Opus 5 $0.00440 $0.00440
Sonnet 5 $0.00176 $0.00176
Haiku 4.5 $0.00088 $0.00088

Measured 2d ago against content hash 958d391a3f40, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

openevolve CLAUDE.md scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

CLAUDE.md · 118 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 118 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

CLAUDE.md

This file provides guidance to Claude Code (claude.ai/code) when working with code in this repository.

Overview

OpenEvolve is an open-source implementation of Google DeepMind's AlphaEvolve system - an evolutionary coding agent that uses LLMs to optimize code through iterative evolution. The framework can evolve code in multiple languages (Python, R, Rust, etc.) for tasks like scientific computing, optimization, and algorithm discovery.

Essential Commands

Development Setup

# Install in development mode with all dependencies
pip install -e ".[dev]"

# Or use Makefile
make install

Running Tests

# Run all tests
python -m unittest discover tests

# Or use Makefile
make test

Code Formatting

# Format with Black
python -m black openevolve examples tests scripts

# Or use Makefile
make lint

Running OpenEvolve

# Basic evolution run
python openevolve-run.py path/to/initial_program.py path/to/evaluator.py --config path/to/config.yaml --iterations 1000

# Resume from checkpoint
python openevolve-run.py path/to/initial_program.py path/to/evaluator.py \
  --config path/to/config.yaml \
  --checkpoint path/to/checkpoint_directory \
  --iterations 50

Visualization

# View evolution tree
python scripts/visualizer.py --path examples/function_minimization/openevolve_output/checkpoints/checkpoint_100/

High-Level Architecture

Core Components

  1. Controller (openevolve/controller.py): Main orchestrator that manages the evolution process using ProcessPoolExecutor for parallel iteration execution.

  2. Database (openevolve/database.py): Implements MAP-Elites algorithm with island-based evolution:

    • Programs mapped to multi-dimensional feature grid
    • Multiple isolated populations (islands) evolve independently
    • Periodic migration between islands prevents convergence
    • Tracks absolute best program separately
  3. Evaluator (openevolve/evaluator.py): Cascade evaluation pattern:

    • Stage 1: Quick validation
    • Stage 2: Basic performance testing
    • Stage 3: Comprehensive evaluation
    • Programs must pass thresholds at each stage

Read the full file on GitHub · 118 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 118 lines · 880 tokens per session scan A 958d391a3f40

Subscribe to this mod's changes

openevolve CLAUDE.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository algorithmicsuperintelligence/openevolve (7,290 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 880 tokens to every session, about $0.0044 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.