What is Mcp Chess

mcp-chess is an MCP server designed to provide chess functionality for the Claude AI Assistant, enabling users to play and analyze chess games.

Use cases

Use cases for mcp-chess include playing chess games with Claude, analyzing specific positions, and verifying the legality of moves during gameplay.

How to use

To use mcp-chess, download the appropriate binary for your operating system, make it executable, configure it within Claude Desktop, and then interact with Claude to perform various chess-related tasks.

Key features

Key features of mcp-chess include generating chess board images from Forsyth-Edwards Notation (FEN) strings, suggesting the next move in a chess game, and checking the legality of moves.

Where to use

mcp-chess can be used in educational environments for teaching chess, in AI applications for game analysis, and by chess enthusiasts for practice and improvement.

MCP Chess

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides
chess functionality for Claude AI Assistant.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/324ed381-35f3-45b7-b877-127ef27fd97d

Features

This server implements tools that extend Claude’s capabilities to:

• Generate chess board images from a Forsyth-Edwards Notation (FEN) string
• Suggest the next move in a chess game
• Check if a move is legal

Installation for Claude Desktop

1. Download the latest binary from the Releases page:

   • For Windows: mcp-chess-windows.exe
   • For macOS: mcp-chess-darwin
   • For Linux: mcp-chess-linux

2. Make the file executable (macOS/Linux only):

   chmod +x mcp-chess-darwin   # for macOS
   chmod +x mcp-chess-linux    # for Linux
   

3. For macOS users - Bypassing Security Warnings:

   When you first try to run the application, macOS may display a security warning because the application is not signed by an identified developer. To bypass this:

   • Right-click (or Control-click) on the mcp-chess-darwin file
   • Select “Open” from the context menu
   • Click “Open” in the dialog box that appears

   Alternatively, you can use Terminal:

   xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /path/to/mcp-chess-darwin
   

   This only needs to be done once.

4. Configure Claude Desktop:

   • Open Claude Desktop
   • Select “Settings”, and click on the “Developer” tab
   • Click “Edit Config”
   • Add the MCP server configuration
   • Save the file
   • Restart Claude Desktop

Here’s an example for the MCP server configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-chess": {
      "command": "/path/to/mcp-chess-binary"
    }
  }
}

Using with Claude

Once properly configured, you can ask Claude to perform various chess-related tasks:

Show me the starting position of a chess game.

Let's play a chess game. Check that each move is legal. Suggest the best move to play.

Is Nf3 a legal move from the starting position?

What's a good move for white in this position: "rnbqkbnr/pppp1ppp/8/4p3/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 2"?

Technical Details

Development

This project is built with:

• Spring Boot
• Spring AI (MCP server implementation)
• Java 21
• GraalVM native compilation

Building from Source

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/alexandreroman/mcp-chess.git
cd mcp-chess

# Build with Maven
./mvnw clean package

# Build a native executable
./mvnw -Pnative native:compile

License

This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0 - see the LICENSE file for details.

Credits

• ChessGame - Java chess library
• ChessImage - Chess board renderer
• Stockfish.online - Chess engine API
• Spring AI - AI application framework