High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! In computer science, a state space is a description of a configuration of discrete states used as a simple model of machines. Formally, it can be defined as a tuple [N, A, S, G] where: N is a set of states A is a set of arcs connecting the states S is a nonempty subset of N that contains start states G is a nonempty subset of N that contains the goal states. The state space is what state space search searches in. Graph theory is helpful in understanding and reasoning about state spaces.