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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. An example suitable for most Intel and AMD chips:
84
85 ```
86 cd src
87 make -j profile-build ARCH=x86-64-avx2
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