stockfish-native

UCI interface for native Stockfish

Installation

npm install stockfish-native

Download or build the Stockfish engine from source. If necessary, mark the binary as executable.

Usage

stockfish-native provides methods thinly wrapping the UCI commands supported by the stockfish engine. For better type checking, the results and options are explicitly typed and parsed instead unlike the strings UCI operates on.

Most operations are asynchronous and return a promise. If a command is send before the previous command has been returned, it will be queued and run after the previous commands complete.

Create an engine instance

import Stockfish from "stockfish-native";
 
const engine = new Stockfish("/path/to/engine", options);

Spawns the engine, and any sets the provided UCI options.

Options

type StockfishOptions = Partial<{
  "Debug Log File": string;
  Contempt: number;
  "Analysis Contempt": "Both" | "Off" | "White" | "Black" | "Both";
  Threads: number;
  Hash: number;
  Ponder: boolean;
  MultiPV: number;
  "Skill Level": number;
  "Move Overhead": number;
  "Minimum Thinking Time": number;
  "Slow Mover": number;
  nodestime: number;
  UCI_Chess960: boolean;
  UCI_AnalyseMode: boolean;
  UCI_LimitStrength: boolean;
  UCI_Elo: number;
  SyzygyPath: string;
  SyzygyProbeDepth: number;
  Syzygy50MoveRule: boolean;
  SyzygyProbeLimit: number;
}>;

Search the position

const bestMove = await engine.search(options);

Search for the best move from the current position.

Note: If the infinite option is passed, searching will continue until engine.stop() is called.

Options

type SearchOptions = Partial<{
  depth: number;
  wtime: number;
  btime: number;
  winc: number;
  binc: number;
  movestogo: number;
  nodes: number;
  mate: number;
  movetime: number;
  infinite: boolean;
  ponder: boolean;
  searchmoves: string[];
}>;

Evaluate the position

const { score, detailed } = await engine.eval();

Get the score and detailed evaluation for the current position.

Set the position

engine.position(position);

Set the position used by eval and search.

interface Position {
  start: string; // "startpos" for the starting board or a FEN string. default: "startpos"
  moves: string[]; // moves in long algebraic notation. omit to just use the start position
}

Start a new game

await engine.newgame();
await engine.position(); // reset to start position

Quit

await engine.quit();

Quits the engine after all previous commands have finished.

Kill

engine.kill();

Immediately kill the engine.

Note: If there are active commands they will not resolve.

TypeScript

stockfish-native is written in TypeScript - no types install!

Development

Available Scripts

In the project directory, you can run:

npm run build

Builds the package using typescript into ./lib

npm test

Launches the Jest to run tests.

npm run lint

Checks code for style issues and syntax errors with TSLint and Prettier.

npm run lint:fix

Checks code for style issues and syntax errors with TSLint and Prettier, attempting to fix them when possible.

Publishing a new version

Travis is configured to run deploys on tags.