lichess-bot

A bridge between Lichess API and bots.

How to Install

Mac/Linux:

NOTE: Only Python 3 is supported!
Download the repo into lichess-bot directory
Navigate to the directory in cmd/Terminal: cd lichess-bot
Install virtualenv: pip install virtualenv
Setup virtualenv:

virtualenv .venv -p python3 #if this fails you probably need to add Python3 to your PATH
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Copy config.yml.default to config.yml
Edit the variants: supported_variants and time controls: supported_tc from the config.yml as necessary

Windows:

Here is a video on how to install the bot: (https://youtu.be/w-aJFk00POQ). Or you may proceed to the next steps.
NOTE: Only Python 3 is supported!
If you don't have Python, you may download it here: (https://www.python.org/downloads/). When installing it, enable "add Python to PATH", then go to custom installation (this may be not necessary, but on some computers it won't work otherwise) and enable all options (especially "install for all users"), except the last . It's better to install Python in a path without spaces, like "C:\Python".
To type commands it's better to use PowerShell. Go to Start menu and type "PowerShell" (you may use cmd too, but sometimes it may not work).
Then you may need to upgrade pip. Execute "python -m pip install --upgrade pip" in PowerShell.
Download the repo into lichess-bot directory.
Navigate to the directory in PowerShell: cd [folder's adress] (like "cd C:\chess\lichess-bot").
Install virtualenv: pip install virtualenv.
Setup virtualenv:

virtualenv .venv -p python (if this fails you probably need to add Python to your PATH)
./.venv/Scripts/activate (.\.venv\Scripts\activate should work in cmd in administator mode) (This may not work on Windows, and in this case you need to execute "Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned" first and choose "Y" there [you may need to run Powershell as administrator]. After you executed the script, change execution policy back with "Set-ExecutionPolicy Restricted" and pressing "Y")
pip install -r requirements.txt

Copy config.yml.default to config.yml
Edit the variants: supported_variants and time controls: supported_tc from the config.yml as necessary (use # to disable certain ones)

Lichess OAuth

Create an account for your bot on Lichess.org
NOTE: If you have previously played games on an existing account, you will not be able to use it as a bot account
Once your account has been created and you are logged in, create a personal OAuth2 token with the "Play as a bot" selected and add a description
A token e.g. Xb0ddNrLabc0lGK2 will be displayed. Store this in config.yml as the token field
NOTE: You won't see this token again on Lichess.

Setup Engine

Place your engine(s) in the engine.dir directory
In config.yml, enter the binary name as the engine.name field (In Windows you may need to type a name with ".exe", like "lczero.exe")
Leave the weights field empty or see LeelaChessZero section for Neural Nets

Lichess Upgrade to Bot Account

WARNING This is irreversible. Read more about upgrading to bot account.

run python lichess-bot.py -u

To Quit

Press CTRL+C
It may take some time to quit

LeelaChessZero

Download the weights for the id you want to play from here: http://lczero.org/networks
Extract the weights from the zip archive and rename it to latest.txt
For Windows, download the lczero binary from https://github.com/glinscott/leela-chess/releases
For Mac/Linux, build the lczero binary yourself following LeelaChessZero/lc0/README
Copy both the files into the engine.dir directory
Change the engine.name and engine.engine_options.weights keys in config.yml to lczero (lczero.exe for Windows) and weights.pb.gz
You can specify the number of engine.uci_options.threads in the config.yml file as well
To start: python lichess-bot.py

For Docker

Use https://github.com/vochicong/lc0-nvidia-docker to easily run lc0 and lichess-bot inside a Docker container.

Tips & Tricks

You can specify a different config file with the --config argument.
Here's an example systemd service definition:

[Unit]
Description=lichess-bot
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target

[Service]
Environment="PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1"
ExecStart=/usr/bin/python3 /home/thibault/lichess-bot/lichess-bot.py
WorkingDirectory=/home/thibault/lichess-bot/
User=thibault
Group=thibault
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the Lichess team, especially T. Alexander Lystad and Thibault Duplessis for working with the LeelaChessZero team to get this API up. Thanks to the Niklas Fiekas and his python-chess code which allows engine communication seamlessly.

License

lichess-bot is licensed under the AGPLv3 (or any later version at your option). Check out LICENSE.txt for the full text.

codeandkey/lichess-bot