native-stockfish 0.1.0

The fastest client for the Stockfish chess engine using C++ extension.

Native Stockfish Python Client

Native Stockfish is a minimal-overhead Python interface to the Stockfish chess engine. Stockfish runs as a native process, with all UCI communication handled in C to avoid Python becoming a performance bottleneck.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.8+
• A compiled Stockfish binary. You can compile Stockfish from the official source or use the submodule included in this repository.

Compiling Stockfish

If you have the Stockfish submodule checked out:

cd Stockfish/src
make -j profile-build

Or you can use use the binray from the website.

Installation

From Source

pip install .

Usage

See examples/basic_usage.py for a complete example.

import native_stockfish

# Path to your compiled Stockfish binary
stockfish_path = "./Stockfish/src/stockfish"

client = native_stockfish.StockfishClient(stockfish_path)
client.start()

# Analyze a position (FEN string)
# top_moves(fen, depth, count)
moves = client.top_moves("rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1", 15, 3)
print(moves)

client.stop()

API

StockfishClient(path)

Initializes the client with the path to the Stockfish executable.

client.start()

Starts the Stockfish engine process.

client.status()

Returns the status of the engine (e.g., "running", "stopped").

client.top_moves(fen, depth, count)

Analyzes the given FEN position.

• fen: The FEN string of the position to analyze.
• depth: The search depth.
• count: The number of top moves to return.

Returns a list of top moves.

client.stop()

Stops the Stockfish engine process.