ReChess: Chess Reinvented by You

ReChess is an intuitive and easy-to-use chess web app that allows you to create and play your own highly personalized chess variants. It's built with Vue.js and TypeScript, and uses a heavily modified version of the Protochess engine for the game logic.

Check it out at rechess.org!

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Collaborating ❤

Cloning the Repository

This project uses the protochess-engine repo as a submodule. If you haven't cloned this repository with the --recurse-submodules option, you can run the following command to clone the submodules:

git submodule update --init --recursive

When pulling changes, I recommend using the --recurse-submodules option to make sure you also get the latest changes in the submodules, if any:

git pull --recurse-submodules

Make sure you also have cargo, wasm-pack and rustup installed. The first compilation of the engine might take a while.

Project Setup

npm install

If you use VSCode, install the Vue Language extension.

Using a Firebase backend

1. Create a Firebase project. Make sure to enable App Check (with reCAPTCHA), Firestore, Hosting, Storage and Functions.

   Most of the development is done using a local emulator, but you may want to test the deployed production build on a real backend without messing up your production data. In that case, I recommend creating a second Firebase project for development.

2. Go to Google Cloud credentials and get your api keys:

   • Browser Key for production: The one that was created when you made your Firebase project. Restrict it to your domain.
   • Private Key for development: If you made a second project for development, use its key. Otherwise, create a new key and restrict it to localhost.

   From the project root, run echo VITE_RECHESS_FIREBASE_API_KEY=[your private dev key] >> .config/.env.local. Keep it secret!

   Configure GitHub Actions (or the system you use) to do the same with the production key when deploying to production.

   Note: Remember that the browser key will be exposed to the client, so anyone can see and use it. Make sure to restrict it to your domain and set up App Check properly.

   APIs that need to be enabled

   • Cloud Firestore API
   • Cloud Logging API
   • Cloud Storage for Firebase API
   • Firebase App Check API
   • Firebase Hosting API
   • Firebase Installations API
   • Firebase Remote Config API
   • Identity Toolkit API
   • Token Service API

3. Update src/firebase/credentials.ts with your Firebase credentials. The CAPTCHA_V3_PUBLIC_KEY is the one you created for App Check.

4. Launch the app with npm run dev and open the browser console. You should see a message like this:

   App Check debug token: <TOKEN>. You will need to add it to your app's App Check settings in the Firebase console for it to work.
   

   Copy the token and add it to your Firebase project's App Check settings (see docs).

Compile and Hot-Reload for Development

npm run dev

This will also start the Firebase emulator suite.

Run unit tests

# Run in 2 different terminals:
firebase emulators:start --only firestore,storage,auth
npm test

# Or, if you only need to run the tests once:
firebase emulators:exec --only firestore,storage,auth 'npm test'

If you use VSCode, I recommend installing the Jest extension and adding the following to your settings.json:

"jest.jestCommandLine": "npx jest --config .config/jest.config.js",

Type-Check, Compile and Minify for Production

npm run build

Then you can preview the production build with npm run preview.

Lint with ESLint

npm run lint

If you use VSCode, I recommend installing the ESLint extension and adding the following to your settings.json:

"editor.codeActionsOnSave": {
   "source.fixAll": true
},
"eslint.options": {
   "overrideConfigFile": ".config/.eslintrc.cjs"
},

Build and Deploy to Firebase

Note: Do not deploy directly, since that will expose your private development API key. Instead, push to main and GitHub Actions will take care of it.

firebase login
npm run build
firebase deploy

Assign moderators

npm run make-moderator -- <username>

Where <username> is the same text as the user's URL (https://rechess.org/user/___). If the user is already a moderator, this will remove their moderator privileges.

This command requires the admin-key.json file to be present in .config.

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About the license 📜

All files in this repository (submodules not included) are licensed under the MIT License. The protochess-engine and chessgroundx submodules are licensed under the GNU General Public License v3, since those are forks of raytran/protochess and gbtami/chessgroundx (both licensed under the GPLv3).

This means that the project as a whole is licensed under the GPLv3, but some parts (namely, the code in this repository) are licensed under the MIT License, which is GPL-compatible. See this document for more information.

You are free to use the files in this repository under the terms of the MIT License, but if you also clone and use the protochess-engine submodule or the chessgroundx submodule, you must comply with the terms of the GPLv3.