Foundations -> Recursion And Backtracking

Model explicit search trees cleanly, then decide when pruning is enough and when you should escalate to DP or meet-in-the-middle.

• Topic slug: foundations/recursion-backtracking
• Tutorial page: Open tutorial
• Ladder page: Open ladder
• Repo problems currently tagged here: 0
• Repo companion pages: 2
• Curated external problems: 3

Microtopics

• dfs-generation
• backtracking
• pruning
• branch-ordering
• undo-redo
• search-tree

Learning Sources

Source	Type
Competitive Programmer's Handbook	Reference
Jeff Erickson - Algorithms	Course

Practice Sources

Source	Type
CSES Introductory Problems	Practice
CSES Problem Set	Practice

Repo Companion Material

Material	Type
Meet-In-The-Middle tutorial	related tutorial
Bitmask DP tutorial	related tutorial

Curated External Problems

Warm-Up

Problem	Source	Difficulty	Context	Style	Prerequisites	Tags	Why it fits
Apple Division	CSES	Easy	-	Implementation	Recursion	Subset Search; Brute Force	A tiny subset-search benchmark that teaches clean recursive branching before heavier optimization.

Core

Problem	Source	Difficulty	Context	Style	Prerequisites	Tags	Why it fits
Creating Strings	CSES	Easy	-	Implementation	Recursion; Sorting	Permutations; Duplicates	A clean permutation-generation route where choice ordering and duplicate handling are the whole lesson.

Classics

Problem	Source	Difficulty	Context	Style	Prerequisites	Tags	Why it fits
Chessboard and Queens	CSES	Medium	-	Implementation; Pruning	Recursion; Constraint Checks	Pruning; Board Search	A classic pruning benchmark where the search tree is still explicit and understandable.

Repo Problems

No repo problem note is attached yet. Use the repo companion material above for this theory/process-heavy topic.

Regeneration

python3 scripts/generate_problem_catalog.py