Overview

BotLi is a bot for Lichess. Strongly inspired by ShailChoksi/lichess-bot. It extends its features with a matchmaking mode where the bot automatically challenges other bots with similar ratings.

Not every function of the bot is extensively tested, a faulty or incomplete config.yml will lead to unexpected behavior. Other chess variants than Standard and Chess960 are untested. At least Python 3.10 is required.

Heroku

Chess Engines

• Stockfish
• Stockfish Multi Variant (dev)

Heroku Stack

• Container

How to install

• Import or Fork this repository to your Github.
• Open the Settings tab on heroku and insert your API access token with bot:play scopes enabled in the Config vars field in the format LICHESS_BOT_TOKEN:API-ACCESS-TOKEN, where you replace API-ACCESS-TOKEN with your API Access token.
• Install Heroku CLI and create a new app in Heroku.
  Do note that in certain operating systems Heroku CLI doesn't get added to path automatically. If that's the case you'll have to add heroku to your path manually.
• Run this command in cmd or powershell heroku stack:set container -a appname, where appname is replaced with your Heroku app's name.
• In heroku, in the Deploy tab click on Connect to GitHub and then click on search and select your fork/import of this repository.
• Now scroll down and under Manual deploy, click on deploy with the heroku branch selected.
  
  Note: You could also Enable Automatic Deploys with the heroku branch selected if you would like each commit you make to get automatically and easily deployed onto your bot. It is your choice whether you'd like to Enable or Disable Automatic Deploys.
• After deploying wait for about 5 minutes till the build finishes and then in the Resources tab in heroku turn worker dynos. If you do not see any option to enable any dynos, then you'll have to wait for about 5 minutes and then refresh your page on heroku.

You're now connected to lichess and awaiting challenges! Your bot is up and ready!

CAUTION: Be careful with matchmaking mode, lichess will rate limit you if you let it run for too long!

Setup polyglot opening book

To use a polyglot opening book the name of the book and the path to the book must be entered at the end of the config in the section books.

Several books can be entered here. In the upper area eninge: polyglot: books only the name of the book must be entered. In addition, different books can be used for white, black and chess960. If no specific book is defined, the standard book is used.

Matchmaking mode

You can activate the matchmaking mode in your Dockerfile.

CAUTION: Be careful with matchmaking mode, lichess will rate limit you if you let it run for too long!

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. In addition, the idea of this bot is based on ShailChoksi/lichess-bot.

License

BotLi is licensed under the AGPLv3 (or any later version at your option). Check out the LICENSE file for the full text.