Chess Engine Using UCI

A chess engine written in C# (.NET 9) that communicates over the Universal Chess Interface (UCI) protocol. The engine is named Cheese and is built to be plugged into any UCI-compatible chess GUI.

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What is UCI?

The Universal Chess Interface (UCI) is an open communication protocol that allows chess engines to interact with graphical interfaces (GUIs) or other programs. It works over standard input/output (stdin/stdout), making integration straightforward and GUI-agnostic.

Popular UCI-compatible GUIs include:

• Arena Chess GUI
• Cute Chess
• Lucas Chess
• Scid vs. PC

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Project Structure

Chess-Engine-Using-UCI/
├── Program.cs          # Entry point — starts the UCI loop
├── UCI.cs              # UCI protocol handler (uci, isready, position, go, quit)
├── Board.cs            # Board representation
├── Piece.cs            # Piece definitions
├── Move.cs             # Move representation
├── Engine.cs           # Search algorithm
├── Evaluation.cs       # Position evaluation
├── Utils.cs            # Shared utility functions
└── Chess-Engine-Using UCI.csproj

File	Responsibility
UCI.cs	Reads UCI commands from stdin, dispatches to handlers
Board.cs	Stores and updates the board state (pieces, side to move, etc.)
Piece.cs	Defines piece types and colours
Move.cs	Encodes a chess move (from, to, promotion, flags)
Engine.cs	Implements the search (minimax / alpha-beta)
Evaluation.cs	Scores a position (material, piece-square tables, etc.)
Utils.cs	Helper functions shared across modules

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Supported UCI Commands

Command	Status	Description
uci	✅	Responds with engine identity and uciok
isready	✅	Responds with readyok
position	🚧 In progress	Parses start position and move list
go	🚧 In progress	Starts the search and returns bestmove
quit	✅	Exits the engine cleanly

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Prerequisites

• .NET 9 SDK

Check your installation:

dotnet --version

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Build & Run

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/MuditAtrey/Chess-Engine-Using-UCI.git
cd Chess-Engine-Using-UCI

Build:

dotnet build

Run directly:

dotnet run

Once running, the engine listens for UCI commands on stdin. You can type commands manually to test it:

uci
isready
quit

Build a standalone executable:

dotnet publish -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained true

The binary will be output to bin/Release/net9.0/win-x64/publish/.

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Connecting to a GUI

1. Build the project (see above) or use dotnet run via a wrapper script.
2. Open your UCI-compatible GUI (e.g., Arena).
3. Navigate to Engines → Install New Engine (exact menu name depends on your GUI).
4. Point it to the compiled .exe (or the dotnet run wrapper).
5. The GUI will issue uci and your engine will respond — you're ready to play!

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Roadmap

• Complete board state parsing (position command)
• Implement legal move generation
• Implement minimax search with alpha-beta pruning
• Add basic material evaluation
• Add piece-square table evaluation
• Support time controls (go movetime, go wtime btime)
• Add opening book support
• Iterative deepening

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Contributing

Pull requests are welcome! If you'd like to contribute:

1. Fork the repository.
2. Create a feature branch: git checkout -b feature/your-feature-name
3. Commit your changes: git commit -m "Add your feature"
4. Push to your fork: git push origin feature/your-feature-name
5. Open a Pull Request against main.

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Author

Mudit Atrey — @MuditAtrey