Usage & Installation

Note

chessengine requires Python 3.7 or later.

To just use the chessengine, the recommended method of installation is using pip -

$ pip install chessengine

To start a game on the command line, call the play module using -

$ python -m chessengine.play

Also see Playing A Game for more.

Installing Locally For Development

For contributing to chessengine, you should get the source code by cloning the repository instead of installing using pip.

First, fork the repository on GitHub.

Navigate to the folder where you want to download the source code, and then clone the repository by running the following command -

$ git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/chessengine.git

Replace <your-username> with your GitHub username.

This will download the latest copy of the source code. Now, you can install it like a package using pip. But first, it is highly recommended to create a virtual environment so that this installation of chessengine doesn’t interfere with other installations of chessengine on your machine (if you have any).

To create a virtual environment in the directory in which you have cloned the repo, run the following command -

$ python -m venv venv

This will create a virtual environment in a sub-directory called venv. Note that everytime you make some changes to the source code, you will only be able to notice them if the virtual environment is active. Activate the virtual environment using -

$ source venv/bin/activate

Note

If you are on Windows, you can activate your virtual environment by running -

$ venv\scripts\activate

Now that you have activated the virtual environment, you can install chessengine.

$ pip install -e path/to/chessengine

Now, inside this virtual environment, the installed version of chessengine will point towards the repository you just cloned, so you will immediately see any changes you make to the source code.

To work on a patch and make a pull request, see Contributing A Patch