uci

A golang API to interact with UCI chess engines. (should be considered experimental for the time being) A description of how UCI works is available here.

Many chess engines support UCI (Universal Chess Interface). This library is designed for use with Stockfish, but should work with other UCI engines.

Godoc for UCI

minimum viable snippet

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"log"
	"gopkg.in/freeeve/uci.v1"
)

func main() {
	eng, err := uci.NewEngine("/path/to/stockfish")
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}
	
	// set some engine options
	eng.SetOptions(uci.Options{
		Hash:128,
		Ponder:false,
		OwnBook:true,
		MultiPV:4,
	})

	// set the starting position
	eng.SetFEN("rnb4r/ppp1k1pp/3bp3/1N3p2/1P2n3/P3BN2/2P1PPPP/R3KB1R b KQ - 4 11")
	
	// set some result filter options
	resultOpts := uci.HighestDepthOnly | uci.IncludeUpperbounds | uci.IncludeLowerbounds
	results, _ := eng.GoDepth(10, resultOpts)

	// print it (String() goes to pretty JSON for now)
	fmt.Println(results)
}

produces this output:

{
  "BestMove": "c8d7",
  "Results": [
    {
      "Time": 136,
      "Depth": 10,
      "SelDepth": 16,
      "Nodes": 183853,
      "NodesPerSecond": 1351860,
      "MultiPV": 1,
      "Lowerbound": false,
      "Upperbound": false,
      "Score": 20,
      "Mate": false,
      "BestMoves": [
        "c8d7",
        "b5d6",
        "c7d6",
        "f3g5",
        "b8c6",
        "g5e4",
        "f5e4",
        "a1d1",
        "h7h6",
        "f2f4",
        "a8f8"
      ]
    },
    {
      "Time": 136,
      "Depth": 10,
      "SelDepth": 16,
      "Nodes": 183853,
      "NodesPerSecond": 1351860,
      "MultiPV": 2,
      "Lowerbound": false,
      "Upperbound": false,
      "Score": 2,
      "Mate": false,
      "BestMoves": [
        "a7a5",
        "b5d6",
        "c7d6",
        "b4b5",
        "b8d7",
        "f3d2",
        "e4d2",
        "e3d2",
        "b7b6",
        "a3a4"
      ]
    },
    {
      "Time": 136,
      "Depth": 10,
      "SelDepth": 16,
      "Nodes": 183853,
      "NodesPerSecond": 1351860,
      "MultiPV": 3,
      "Lowerbound": false,
      "Upperbound": false,
      "Score": -4,
      "Mate": false,
      "BestMoves": [
        "b8c6",
        "c2c4",
        "a7a6",
        "b5d6",
        "c7d6",
        "f3g5",
        "c8d7",
        "c4c5",
        "d6d5",
        "g5e4",
        "f5e4"
      ]
    },
    {
      "Time": 136,
      "Depth": 10,
      "SelDepth": 16,
      "Nodes": 183853,
      "NodesPerSecond": 1351860,
      "MultiPV": 4,
      "Lowerbound": false,
      "Upperbound": false,
      "Score": -18,
      "Mate": false,
      "BestMoves": [
        "e7f7",
        "h2h4",
        "a7a5",
        "b5d6",
        "c7d6",
        "b4a5",
        "b8d7",
        "f3g5",
        "e4g5",
        "h4g5",
        "a8a5",
        "e3d2"
      ]
    }
  ]
}