Local-Chess is a local-first and open-source way to play chess in the terminal. It allows users to play against each other on the same machine or over a LAN connection and incorporates a home-made chess simulation with a beautiful TUI front-end (powered by textual).

Installation

pypi - (requires python 3.14+)

pipx install local-chess

Installs local-chess in a virtual environment to ensure that there are no dependency conflicts. Alternatively you could also try:

pip install local-chess

Both of these approaches install an entry point script such that local-chess can be run anywhere in the terminal by entering:

local-chess

From a checkout - (requires poetry)

git clone https://github.com/Leo-Milligan/Local-Chess.git
cd local-chess
poetry install

To run local-chess, enter the following command from within the local-chess directory:

poetry run local-chess

Features

• Local two-player mode
• Play with opponents on your local network
• Various time control modes
• Move-by-move game review with navigation controls
• Customisation options (board colour + piece style)

Controls

Chess inputs are made through entering moves into the input bar in algebraic notation. At times, the programme will try to help with any input errors. For example, giving you options to remove piece ambiguity or asking whether you meant to take a piece etc.

To offer a draw, enter d. To resign, enter r.

You can either use the mouse to select buttons or swap between them using TAB and SHIFT+TAB.