What is Connections Workbench?
Connections Workbench is a browser-based thinking companion to help you reason through the daily NYT Connections puzzle before committing to an answer. The puzzle gives you 16 words and asks you to sort them into four groups of four, each sharing a hidden connection.
How it works
- Enter the 16 words — type them into the grid one by one, paste a delimited list (comma, semicolon, pipe, tab, or newline) into any box, or paste one word per line into the text area. For puzzles with visual tiles (colour, size, formatting), switch to image mode: paste or upload a screenshot, then drag two corner handles to align a 4×4 grid overlay to the puzzle tiles — the app crops and uses them directly. Image tiles are session-only and will not survive closing the tab.
- Move to the Workbench once all 16 are filled. The left panel shows all 16 words as draggable tiles; the right panel has four empty group slots.
- Drag tiles from the left into a group on the right to test a potential connection. Drag them back, or between groups, as your thinking evolves.
- Name each group using the text field — write your hypothesis for what the connection is.
- Predict the difficulty colour. NYT rates groups from easiest to hardest: Yellow Green Blue Purple. Groups animate into colour order (Purple at top) as you assign them.
- Double-click any tile in the word pool to send it straight to the focused group — click any group area to set the focus target. The next open slot in the focused group is highlighted.
- Double-click any tile in a group to instantly return it to the word pool.
- You can return to Today's Words at any time to fix a typo — changes sync live to the workbench tiles.
Privacy
Connections Workbench stores everything in your browser's localStorage — nothing
is sent to any server. Multiple people can use the same deployed site simultaneously
without seeing or interfering with each other's thinking. Your session persists across
page refreshes until you click Start Over.
In image mode, tile data is held in sessionStorage instead — also
local-only, but cleared when you close the tab.
Personal Hints
Section 4 lets you build a personal library of connection types to use as reminders while you play — for example "Last names of related people" or "Things that follow a colour". Hints appear in the Workbench below the word pool where you can tap one to highlight it while you think. They persist between games and are never cleared by Start Over.
Tips
- Start with the groups you're most confident about and move those tiles first.
- Use the group name field to capture your reasoning, not just the label.
- Colour-coding your confidence can help reveal where you're uncertain.
- You can drag tiles directly between right-hand groups without going back to the pool.
- Build up your Personal Hints over time — connection types repeat across puzzles.
Changelog
A full record of updates and new features is available on the changelog page.