Chess Analysis Assistant for Claude

This tool helps you analyze chess positions and get professional evaluations using Stockfish, right within Claude! You can:

• Get position evaluations
• See visual board representations
• Analyze different moves and variations
• Look up positions in the masters database (games played by 2200+ rated players)

Requirements

• Claude Desktop installed on your computer
• Git installed on your system

Quick Installation

Installing via Smithery

To install Chess Analysis Assistant for Claude Desktop automatically via Smithery:

npx -y @smithery/cli install chess-mcp --client claude

Mac and Linux Users

Open Terminal and run this command:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/turlockmike/chess-mcp/master/install.sh | bash

That’s it! The script will:

1. Install required dependencies (Node.js 20+, Stockfish, Cairo)
2. Configure Claude Desktop
3. Set up the Chess Assistant

Manual Installation (Windows or Advanced Users)

If you prefer to install manually or are using Windows, follow these steps:

Requirements

• Claude Desktop
• Node.js version 20 or higher
• Stockfish chess engine
• Cairo graphics library (for board visualization)

Step-by-Step Installation

Step 1: Install Dependencies

Mac Users:

# Install Homebrew if you haven't already
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

# Install required packages
brew install stockfish cairo pkg-config jq

Windows Users:

1. Install Node.js (LTS version)
2. Download Stockfish and add it to your PATH
3. Install Cairo

Step 2: Install Chess Assistant

npm install -g chess-mcp

Step 3: Configure Claude Desktop

1. Open Claude Desktop
2. Navigate to the configuration file:
   • Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
   • Windows: %APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
3. Add this configuration:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "chess": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": ["chess-mcp"]
        }
    }
}

4. Save and restart Claude Desktop

Using the Chess Assistant

1. Open Claude Desktop
2. Look for the tools icon (🔧) - it should show chess analysis tools
3. Try these example prompts:
   • “Analyze this position: rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1”
   • “Show me the current position”
   • “What’s the best move in this position?”
   • “Look up this position in the masters database”