Full disclosure: that’s a wild guess. It may be helpful, or it might turn out to be a terrible idea for reasons I hadn’t considered. I’m definitely not claiming it is a better way.

That said, I’m curious now. I also refuse to allow myself to dig further into it. I’ve got enough spinning plates at the moment. :-)

Yep! I suspect there are lots of different ways to optimize this search, especially with some heuristic approaches. One of the great things about HN - There is always someone with a better way!