AVO: Agentic Variation Operators Replace Classical Evolutionary Search with Autonomous Coding Agents

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Agentic Variation Operators (AVO) replace the fixed mutation, crossover, and hand-designed heuristics of classical evolutionary algorithms with autonomous coding agents. Rather than confining search to parameter perturbations, AVO agents reason about solution structure, generate novel candidates via code synthesis, and adaptively steer the search. This represents a paradigm shift in optimization — from hand-crafted operators to LLM agents that autonomously design search strategies.