Chess in your terminal,
right beside Claude.

A Claude Code plugin: a board pane next to the chat, an engine compiled to native code with Perry, and online games against other people. Ask Claude about your position while you play.

/plugin install chess --marketplace skelpo/chess

Then type /chess. Needs Claude Code 2.1.316 or later.

Black to move.
Engine Perry native
depth 4 · 12,785 nodes · 31 ms

1. e4 e5
2. Nf3 Nc6
3. Bb5

[ New ] [ Undo ] [ Hint ]

High scores

Wins in online games. Only games of at least 10 half-moves count.

#	Player	Won	Lost	Drawn
	Loading…

Install

In Claude Code (2.1.316 or later), run /plugin install chess --marketplace skelpo/chess.
On older versions: /plugin marketplace add skelpo/chess, then /plugin install chess@skelpo-chess.
Type /chess. The board opens in a pane.
For the board beside the chat instead of below it, switch Claude Code to its fullscreen layout: /tui fullscreen. There you can also click the board.

Update later with /plugin marketplace update skelpo-chess and /plugin update chess@skelpo-chess.

Docs

Playing

Type moves as coordinates (e2e4, e7e8q) in the pane's move field, or use its menu: New game, Undo, Hint, Flip, Easier, Harder, Engine, Play online. ctrl+x tab gives the pane the keyboard, Tab walks the menu, Esc returns to the prompt. You can also play from the prompt: /chess e2e4, /chess undo, /chess hint.

Board key	Action
Arrows, Enter	Move the cursor, pick, play
`q r b n`	Promotion piece
`u` `n` `h`	Undo, new game, hint
`f` `g`	Flip, glyphs or letters
`+` `-`	Engine level

Board keys work after clicking the board, in the fullscreen layout.

Command	Starts
`/chess`	Opens the board
`/chess black 7`	As Black, level 7 of 10
`/chess both`	Two players, no engine
`/chess fen <FEN>`	From a position

Claude plays along

Claude sees the same game through its tools, so you can ask "what should I play here?", "why was that a mistake?", or have it move for you. Its tools: chess_new_game, chess_move, chess_show, chess_legal_moves, chess_hint, chess_engine_move, chess_undo, chess_claim_draw, chess_settings. During an online game Claude stays out of it.

Online

Play online in the menu (or online in the move field). Pick a username: 3 to 20 letters, digits, _ or -, first come, first served. No password or email: the plugin keeps a random token for the name on your computer.
Play anyone pairs you with the next waiting player; whoever waited longer plays White. Or Challenge someone from the online list; they can Accept or Decline.
No clocks and no chat. Someone gone from a game for 10 minutes loses it. No takebacks or hints online.
The high scores rank wins, then fewer losses, then more draws. Games shorter than 10 half-moves don't count.

The engine

The engine is plain TypeScript with no dependencies. The plugin runs it as a native executable compiled by Perry, which starts in about 10 ms, so every engine move and hint is a fresh native process outside Claude Code. The online server is the same: one TypeScript file, compiled by Perry, running here.

Other agents (MCP)

The same tools are available to opencode, Cursor and any other MCP client as a local stdio server, either from source or from the native binary:

node mcp/src/server.ts            # Node 22.18+
chess-engine-<os>-<arch> mcp      # Perry native, no Node

API

The online server is https://api.tuichess.dev: HTTP and JSON with long polling. Authenticated calls send Authorization: Bearer <token>.

Endpoint	Purpose
`POST /v1/register`	Body `{"name"}`. Claims a username, returns `{"name", "token"}`.
`GET /v1/state?since=<n>`	Everything one player sees: online players, challenges, the game, the high scores. Held up to 25 s until something changes.
`POST /v1/action`	`queue`, `unqueue`, `challenge` / `accept` / `decline` with `name`, `cancel`, `move` with `uci`, `resign`, `draw`, `leave`.
`GET /v1/leaderboard`	The high scores. No token needed.
`GET /health`	`ok`

curl -s https://api.tuichess.dev/v1/leaderboard

Chess in your terminal,right beside Claude.