Chess Solver

A desktop chess analysis tool powered by Stockfish 18.
Set up any board position and get the top engine-recommended moves with evaluations, tactical motifs, and principal variations.

Tactical motifs flagged on every line — here a back-rank mate in 1

Built-in update check against GitHub releases

Features

• Drag-and-drop piece movement with click-to-place editing
• Stockfish 18 analysis with streaming results (moves appear instantly)
• 1 / 3 / 5 candidate lines (fewer lines = deeper search), with eval bars and depth info
• Tactical motif detection (forks, pins, skewers, checks, etc.)
• Opening name recognition
• Checkmate, stalemate, and draw detection
• Light/dark theme toggle
• Board flip and turn switching
• Built-in update check (Settings → Check for updates)

Quick Start (Development)

npm install
npm run dev

Opens the app in your browser at http://localhost:5173.

Note: cloning requires Git LFS — the Stockfish WASM binary (~108 MB) is stored with LFS.

Testing

npm test        # unit tests (vitest)
npm run lint    # eslint
npm run build   # type-check + production build

The same three steps run in CI on every push and pull request.

Download

Prebuilt binaries are on the releases page:

• Windows — Chess.Solver.<version>.exe, a portable single-file build. Download and run (SmartScreen may warn on first run because the binary is unsigned; choose "More info → Run anyway").
• macOS — Chess.Solver-<version>-universal.dmg, a universal (Intel + Apple Silicon) disk image. The app is not notarized, so on first launch right-click the app → Open → Open to get past Gatekeeper.

Release binaries are built by the release workflow on tagged commits.

Build Standalone Desktop App

npm install
npm run electron

Builds the production bundle and launches it as a standalone Electron desktop app.

Build Installers

npm run dist

Builds for the platform you run it on and outputs to release/:

• On Windows: release/Chess Solver <version>.exe — single-file portable build (movable to USB / other machines) — plus release/win-unpacked/, the unpacked app folder used as the source for desktop installs
• On macOS: release/Chess Solver-<version>-universal.dmg — universal disk image for Intel and Apple Silicon

.dmg files can only be built on macOS; CI's release workflow uses a macOS runner for that.

First-time build (Windows)

The first npm run dist on a machine downloads the winCodeSign toolchain, which contains symbolic links into a macOS subfolder. Windows blocks symlink creation unless one of these is true:

• The PowerShell session is running as Administrator, or
• Developer Mode is enabled in Settings → Privacy & Security → For developers

Run the first build under one of those conditions. Subsequent builds reuse the cached toolchain and do not need elevated privileges.

Install as a Desktop App (Windows)

After running npm run dist, you can install the app for the current user so it has a desktop and Start Menu shortcut and survives future rebuilds:

Copy-Item -Recurse -Force `
  "$PWD\release\win-unpacked" `
  "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\ChessSolver"

$ws = New-Object -ComObject WScript.Shell
foreach ($dir in @([Environment]::GetFolderPath('Desktop'), "$env:APPDATA\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs")) {
  $lnk = $ws.CreateShortcut("$dir\Chess Solver.lnk")
  $lnk.TargetPath = "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\ChessSolver\Chess Solver.exe"
  $lnk.WorkingDirectory = "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\ChessSolver"
  $lnk.IconLocation = "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\ChessSolver\Chess Solver.exe,0"
  $lnk.Save()
}

To pin to the taskbar, right-click the desktop shortcut → Pin to taskbar (Windows blocks programmatic taskbar pinning).

App Icon

The app icon is a chess-knight glyph on a purple #863bff rounded square. Windows embeds build/icon.ico; macOS converts build/icon.png (1024×1024) to .icns at package time. To regenerate both after editing the design, run:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File build/make-icon.ps1      # icon.ico (256..16)
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File build/make-icon-png.ps1  # icon.png (1024)

Both scripts use GDI+ with no external dependencies. Rerun npm run dist afterwards to embed the result.

How to Use

1. The board starts with the standard chess position. Stockfish begins analyzing automatically.
2. Select a piece from the palette below the board, then click any square to place it.
3. Use Remove to erase pieces from the board.
4. Toggle White/Black to move to change the side to analyze.
5. The analysis panel shows the top engine moves with evaluations, tactical motifs, and principal variations. Use the 1 / 3 / 5 selector to trade breadth for depth.
6. Click any analysis line to play that move on the board.
7. Hover over a line to highlight the move on the board.
8. Use Reset to restore the starting position or Clear to empty the board.
9. Open the ⚙ settings menu (top left) to see the app version or check for updates.

Tech Stack

• React 19 + TypeScript
• Vite (dev server serves COOP/COEP headers so SharedArrayBuffer is available for the threaded Stockfish build)
• Stockfish 18 WASM (multi-threaded build, pthread workers)
• chess.js for move validation
• react-chessboard for the board UI
• Electron for desktop runtime, electron-builder for packaging
• Vitest for unit tests, GitHub Actions for CI

License

MIT