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ShellLite Chess Engine and Lichess Bot

A chess engine built entirely in the ShellLite programming language, along with a Lichess Bot Bridge integration.

Features

  • Universal Chess Interface compliant engine loop
  • Optimised search using Negamax with Alpha Beta Pruning and Transposition Table caching
  • Tactical evaluation featuring Piece Square Tables and Delta Pruning
  • Custom legal capture generator for quiescence search
  • Lichess integration with automatic reconnection on stream disconnections

Architecture

The system consists of two primary components.

  1. The ShellLite Chess Engine: Written in ShellLite, implementing the board representation, move generation, and tactical search. It communicates using the standard Universal Chess Interface protocol.
  2. The Lichess Bot Bridge: A multithreaded Python application that streams challenges and game events from Lichess, automatically spawning separate, isolated ShellLite engine processes to calculate and make moves for each game.

Requirements

  • Python 3.10 or higher
  • Requests library
  • ShellLite interpreter

Installation and Setup

  1. Clone this repository to your local machine.
  2. Install the required Python dependencies: pip install shell-lite pip install requests
  3. Copy the configuration template file: copy lichess_config.json.example lichess_config.json
  4. Edit lichess_config.json and replace YOUR_LICHESS_BOT_TOKEN_HERE with your private Lichess Bot API token.

Running the Engine Locally

To run and test the engine locally via the Universal Chess Interface CLI:

  • On Windows, run the run_engine.bat file.
  • On Linux or macOS, run: shl main.shl OR shl run main.shl

Running the Lichess Bot

To start the bot and connect it to Lichess:

  • On Windows, run the run_lichess.bat file.
  • On Linux or macOS, run: python lichess_bot.py

ENJOY!

License: MIT