git.sesse.net Git - stockfish/blob - README.md

   1 <div align="center">
   2
   3   [![Stockfish][stockfish128-logo]][website-link]
   4
   5   <h3>Stockfish</h3>
   6
   7   A free and strong UCI chess engine.
   8   <br>
   9   <strong>[Explore Stockfish docs »][wiki-link]</strong>
  10   <br>
  11   <br>
  12   [Report bug][issue-link]
  13   ·
  14   [Open a discussion][discussions-link]
  15   ·
  16   [Discord][discord-link]
  17   ·
  18   [Blog][website-blog-link]
  19
  20   [![Build][build-badge]][build-link]
  21   [![License][license-badge]][license-link]
  22   <br>
  23   [![Release][release-badge]][release-link]
  24   [![Commits][commits-badge]][commits-link]
  25   <br>
  26   [![Website][website-badge]][website-link]
  27   [![Fishtest][fishtest-badge]][fishtest-link]
  28   [![Discord][discord-badge]][discord-link]
  29
  30 </div>
  31
  32 ## Overview
  33
  34 [Stockfish][website-link] is a **free and strong UCI chess engine** derived from
  35 Glaurung 2.1 that analyzes chess positions and computes the optimal moves.
  36
  37 Stockfish **does not include a graphical user interface** (GUI) that is required
  38 to display a chessboard and to make it easy to input moves. These GUIs are
  39 developed independently from Stockfish and are available online. **Read the
  40 documentation for your GUI** of choice for information about how to use
  41 Stockfish with it.
  42
  43 See also the Stockfish [documentation][wiki-usage-link] for further usage help.
  44
  45 ## Files
  46
  47 This distribution of Stockfish consists of the following files:
  48
  49   * [README.md][readme-link], the file you are currently reading.
  50
  51   * [Copying.txt][license-link], a text file containing the GNU General Public
  52     License version 3.
  53
  54   * [AUTHORS][authors-link], a text file with the list of authors for the project.
  55
  56   * [src][src-link], a subdirectory containing the full source code, including a
  57     Makefile that can be used to compile Stockfish on Unix-like systems.
  58
  59   * a file with the .nnue extension, storing the neural network for the NNUE
  60     evaluation. Binary distributions will have this file embedded.
  61
  62 ## The UCI protocol
  63
  64 The [Universal Chess Interface][uci-link] (UCI) is a standard text-based protocol
  65 used to communicate with a chess engine and is the recommended way to do so for
  66 typical graphical user interfaces (GUI) or chess tools. Stockfish implements the
  67 majority of its options.
  68
  69 Developers can see the default values for the UCI options available in Stockfish
  70 by typing `./stockfish uci` in a terminal, but most users should typically use a
  71 chess GUI to interact with Stockfish.
  72
  73 For more information on UCI or debug commands, see our [documentation][wiki-commands-link].
  74
  75 ## Compiling Stockfish
  76
  77 Stockfish has support for 32 or 64-bit CPUs, certain hardware instructions,
  78 big-endian machines such as Power PC, and other platforms.
  79
  80 On Unix-like systems, it should be easy to compile Stockfish directly from the
  81 source code with the included Makefile in the folder `src`. In general, it is
  82 recommended to run `make help` to see a list of make targets with corresponding
  83 descriptions.
  84
  85 ```
  86 cd src
  87 make -j build ARCH=x86-64-modern
  88 ```
  89
  90 Detailed compilation instructions for all platforms can be found in our
  91 [documentation][wiki-compile-link].
  92
  93 ## Contributing
  94
  95 ### Donating hardware
  96
  97 Improving Stockfish requires a massive amount of testing. You can donate your
  98 hardware resources by installing the [Fishtest Worker][worker-link] and viewing
  99 the current tests on [Fishtest][fishtest-link].
 100
 101 ### Improving the code
 102
 103 In the [chessprogramming wiki][programming-link], many techniques used in
 104 Stockfish are explained with a lot of background information.
 105 The [section on Stockfish][programmingsf-link] describes many features
 106 and techniques used by Stockfish. However, it is generic rather than
 107 focused on Stockfish's precise implementation.
 108
 109 The engine testing is done on [Fishtest][fishtest-link].
 110 If you want to help improve Stockfish, please read this [guideline][guideline-link]
 111 first, where the basics of Stockfish development are explained.
 112
 113 Discussions about Stockfish take place these days mainly in the Stockfish
 114 [Discord server][discord-link]. This is also the best place to ask questions
 115 about the codebase and how to improve it.
 116
 117 ## Terms of use
 118
 119 Stockfish is free and distributed under the
 120 [**GNU General Public License version 3**][license-link] (GPL v3). Essentially,
 121 this means you are free to do almost exactly what you want with the program,
 122 including distributing it among your friends, making it available for download
 123 from your website, selling it (either by itself or as part of some bigger
 124 software package), or using it as the starting point for a software project of
 125 your own.
 126
 127 The only real limitation is that whenever you distribute Stockfish in some way,
 128 you MUST always include the license and the full source code (or a pointer to
 129 where the source code can be found) to generate the exact binary you are
 130 distributing. If you make any changes to the source code, these changes must
 131 also be made available under GPL v3.
 132
 133
 134 [authors-link]:       https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/AUTHORS
 135 [build-link]:         https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/actions/workflows/stockfish.yml
 136 [commits-link]:       https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/commits/master
 137 [discord-link]:       https://discord.gg/GWDRS3kU6R
 138 [issue-link]:         https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/issues/new?assignees=&labels=&template=BUG-REPORT.yml
 139 [discussions-link]:   https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/discussions/new
 140 [fishtest-link]:      https://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests
 141 [guideline-link]:     https://github.com/glinscott/fishtest/wiki/Creating-my-first-test
 142 [license-link]:       https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/Copying.txt
 143 [programming-link]:   https://www.chessprogramming.org/Main_Page
 144 [programmingsf-link]: https://www.chessprogramming.org/Stockfish
 145 [readme-link]:        https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/README.md
 146 [release-link]:       https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/releases/latest
 147 [src-link]:           https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/tree/master/src
 148 [stockfish128-logo]:  https://stockfishchess.org/images/logo/icon_128x128.png
 149 [uci-link]:           https://backscattering.de/chess/uci/
 150 [website-link]:       https://stockfishchess.org
 151 [website-blog-link]:  https://stockfishchess.org/blog/
 152 [wiki-link]:          https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/wiki
 153 [wiki-usage-link]:    https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/wiki/Download-and-usage
 154 [wiki-compile-link]:  https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/wiki/Compiling-from-source
 155 [wiki-commands-link]: https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/wiki/Commands
 156 [worker-link]:        https://github.com/glinscott/fishtest/wiki/Running-the-worker
 157
 158 [build-badge]:        https://img.shields.io/github/actions/workflow/status/official-stockfish/Stockfish/stockfish.yml?branch=master&style=for-the-badge&label=stockfish&logo=github
 159 [commits-badge]:      https://img.shields.io/github/commits-since/official-stockfish/Stockfish/latest?style=for-the-badge
 160 [discord-badge]:      https://img.shields.io/discord/435943710472011776?style=for-the-badge&label=discord&logo=Discord
 161 [fishtest-badge]:     https://img.shields.io/website?style=for-the-badge&down_color=red&down_message=Offline&label=Fishtest&up_color=success&up_message=Online&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftests.stockfishchess.org%2Ftests%2Ffinished
 162 [license-badge]:      https://img.shields.io/github/license/official-stockfish/Stockfish?style=for-the-badge&label=license&color=success
 163 [release-badge]:      https://img.shields.io/github/v/release/official-stockfish/Stockfish?style=for-the-badge&label=official%20release
 164 [website-badge]:      https://img.shields.io/website?style=for-the-badge&down_color=red&down_message=Offline&label=website&up_color=success&up_message=Online&url=https%3A%2F%2Fstockfishchess.org