The four groups

  • Fowler refactoring moves

    EXTRACT · INLINE · RENAME · MOVE

  • Gang of Four design patterns

    OBSERVER · SINGLETON · ADAPTER · VISITOR

  • Letters of SOLID

    SRP · OCP · LSP · ISP

  • Words paired with DESIGN

    PATTERN · SYSTEM · REVIEW · DOC

Why this puzzle works

Every cluster on the board is OOP-flavored, which is the whole *vibe* of refactor day. The wordplay tiles are dev-jargon-adjacent — DOC could pull you toward 'documentation', but design doc is the right slot. PATTERN is the deceptive one: in a puzzle filled with patterns (Observer, Singleton), 'pattern' the bare word still belongs in the wordplay group, not the patterns group. Connectle convention: if a category name appears as a *tile* on the board, that tile is *not* in that category. Wyna's rule of thumb, adopted.

How to read a Connectle without solving it

A code-themed grouping puzzle rewards counting as much as recognition. Start by listing every plausible group, then notice which tiles appear in two lists. Whichever group has exactly four unambiguous members is your anchor — solve it first and the rest of the board collapses by elimination. The hardest tier (purple) is almost always wordplay: tiles that share a prefix or suffix, not a concept. If a tile feels orphaned, ask whether the same word could follow or precede a common engineering word like root, stack, cache, or queue.