tges: TGES Algorithm for Causal Discovery

In causalDisco: Tools for Causal Discovery on Observational Data

TGES Algorithm for Causal Discovery

Description

Run the Temporal Greedy Equivalent Search algorithm for causal discovery using one of several engines.

Usage

tges(engine = c("causalDisco"), score, ...)

Arguments

engine	Character; which engine to use. Must be one of: "causalDisco" causalDisco library.
score	Character; name of the scoring function to use.
...	Additional arguments passed to the chosen engine (e.g. test or algorithm parameters).

Details

For specific details on the supported scores, see CausalDiscoSearch. For additional parameters passed via ..., see tges_run().

Recommendation

While it is possible to call the function returned directly with a data frame, we recommend using disco(). This provides a consistent interface and handles knowledge integration.

Value

A function that takes a single argument data (a data frame). When called, this function returns a list containing:

• knowledge A Knowledge object with the background knowledge used in the causal discovery algorithm. See knowledge() for how to construct it.

• caugi A caugi::caugi object (of class PDAG) representing the learned causal graph from the causal discovery algorithm.

References

Larsen TE, Ekstrøm CT, and Petersen AH. Score-Based Causal Discovery with Temporal Background Information, 2025. doi:10.48550/arXiv.2502.06232.

See Also

Other causal discovery algorithms: boss(), boss_fci(), fci(), ges(), gfci(), grasp(), grasp_fci(), gs(), iamb-family, pc(), sp_fci(), tfci(), tpc()

Examples

# Recommended route using disco:
kn <- knowledge(
  tpc_example,
  tier(
    child ~ starts_with("child"),
    youth ~ starts_with("youth"),
    old ~ starts_with("old")
  )
)

my_tges <- tges(engine = "causalDisco", score = "tbic")

disco(tpc_example, my_tges, knowledge = kn)

# another way to run it

my_tges <- my_tges |>
  set_knowledge(kn)
my_tges(tpc_example)


# or you can run directly with tges_run()

data(tpc_example)

score_bic <- new(
  "TemporalBIC",
  data = tpc_example,
  nodes = colnames(tpc_example),
  knowledge = kn
)

res_bic <- tges_run(score_bic)
res_bic

causalDisco documentation built on April 13, 2026, 5:06 p.m.