Engine Arena

Local chess analysis board (Stockfish) and arena where your own UCI engines play each other. See docs/PLAN.md.

Dev

cd server && cargo run                   # http://127.0.0.1:7878
cd web && npm install && npm run dev     # http://localhost:5173, proxies /api and /ws

Requires stockfish on PATH (or set STOCKFISH=/path/to/stockfish) and uv for Python engines. Uploaded engines live in data/engines/.

Release: npm run build in web/, then cargo run --release in server/ and open http://127.0.0.1:7878.

Writing an engine

Copy engines/template.py, implement select_move(board, clock), and upload it:

curl -F file=@my_engine.py http://127.0.0.1:7878/api/engines

• Python files run with uv run --script; declare dependencies in the PEP 723 header.
• board is a python-chess Board copy; clock.budget() suggests how many seconds to spend.
• Any executable that speaks UCI over stdin/stdout works too.
• Running out of time, illegal moves, and crashes lose the game.
• Examples: engines/examples/random_mover.py, engines/examples/greedy_material.py.