CUTECHESS-ENGINES.JSON(5)

✨ NAME ✨

cutechess-engines.json(5) — the Cute Chess engine configuration file, and yes bestie, that’s the manual name right at the top 💅. It lives in the File Formats Manual, iconic behavior only.

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so cutechess-engines.json is the chess engine configuration file for cutechess-cli(6). An engine configuration defines a name, a command, a working directory and many other options. Engine configurations can be used in cutechess-cli(6) with the conf command-line option.

Engine configurations are defined in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format. Peep the “JSON FORMAT” section below, bestie ✨.

🌈 JSON FORMAT 🌈

JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is a text-based format for structured data. JSON is a subset of ECMAScript (JavaScript).

🍓 Values 🍓

A JSON value must be one of: object, array, number, string, false, true or null.

🦋 Objects 🦋

An object is structure of name-value pairs enclosed in curly brackets. A name is a string. Name and value are separated by a single colon. Pairs are separated by commas.

Example objects would be:

{ "Finland" : ".fi", "Sweden" : ".se" }

{
  "firstName" : "JC",
  "lastName"  : "Denton",
  "age"       : 28,
  "languages" : [ "English", "French", "Spanish" ]
}

🌸 Arrays 🌸

An array is a structure of zero or more values enclosed in square brackets. Values are separated by commas.

Example arrays would be:

[ "Cute", "Chess" ]

[
  [ 1, 0, 0 ],
  [ 0, 1, 0 ],
  [ 0, 0, 1 ]
]

🧚 Numbers 🧚

A number consists of an integer part and optional fractional and/or exponent part. The integer part can be prefixed with a minus sign. Fractional part is a decimal point followed by one or more digits. Exponent part begins with a letter E in upper or lowercase which may be followed by a plus or minus sign. The E and optional sign are followed by one or more digits.

Octal and hex forms are not allowed. periodt 💀.

Example numbers would be:

128
-1.04
2e32
-18E-20

💜 Strings 💜

A string is sequence of characters enclosed in quotation marks. All Unicode characters may be placed within the quotation marks except for the characters that must be escaped: quotation mark, backslash, and control characters.

Available two-character escape sequences are as follows:

\\      Backslash character.
\/      Forward slash character.
\"      Quotation mark.
\b      Bell character.
\f      Form feed character.
\n      Line feed character.
\t      Vertical tab character.
\unum   Unicode character where num is a four hexadecimal digits
        that encode the character's code point.

Example strings would be:

"Hello, world!"

"Please place all items \"carefully\" in bins."

"\u03a6 is one of the letters of Greek alphabet."

👑 ENGINE CONFIGURATION 👑

The configuration file consist of an array of objects. Each object defines a single engine configuration. Required options for each engine configuration are:

• name : string — The name of the engine.
• command : string — The engine command.
• protocol : "uci" | "xboard" — The chess engine protocol used by this engine.

Other available options for an engine configuration are:

• workingDirectory : string — The working directory of the engine.
• stderrFile : string — File where the engine's standard error output is redirected.
• initStrings : array of string — Array of strings sent to the engine's standard input at startup.
• whitepov : true | false — When true invert the engine's scores when it plays black. The default is false.

This option should be used with engines that always report scores from white's perspective.

• ponder : true | false — When true enable pondering if the engine supports it. The default is false.

🎀 EXAMPLES 🎀

A minimal engine configuration file for the Sloppy chess engine:

[
  {
    "name": "Sloppy",
    "command": "sloppy",
    "protocol": "xboard"
  }
]

Using the above engine configuration file with the conf command-line option:

$ cutechess-cli -engine conf=Sloppy -engine conf=Sloppy -each tc=40/60 -rounds 10

🫶 SEE ALSO 🫶

• cutechess-cli(6)
• The application/json Media Type for JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), RFC 4627, July 2006.

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okay bye bestie, go slay those engine configs 💖✨ — Source/version: Debian, date: October 27, 2015, manual: CUTECHESS-ENGINES.JSON(5) 🫶💜