Make the AI opponent skeleton playable (single-player mode)

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Assessment

Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Newbie friendliness
35/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
javascript
Domain
game-dev

Research direction

Start with js/ai.js and js/game.js, especially the listed move generation and search methods, then read docs/ARCHITECTURE.md. The proposal spans legal move generation, search, UI controls, and responsive play, with a Web Worker question still open. Done means a player can choose a side, start a game against the computer, and the computer always makes legal moves while the UI stays responsive.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

enhancement severity: medium

Summary

The app supports only two players on one device. js/ai.js holds an AI skeleton, but it is not loaded and cannot produce a move.

Where

  • js/ai.js:132-139 (_getAllLegalMoves returns []), js/ai.js:76-86 (findBestMove therefore resolves null), js/ai.js:151-161 (_minimax returns 0)
  • js/config.js:13, js/config.js:26 (AI_DIFFICULTY: 'easy' does not match the EASY/MEDIUM/HARD keys at js/ai.js:9-13)
  • index.html:65-71 (script not loaded), js/game.js:313-325 (generateAllLegalMoves)

Proposal

  1. Make move generation and apply/unapply take a board argument so search can run on a copy (#31).
  2. Ship a first version that plays a random legal move, then a material-greedy one-ply move using the existing _evaluatePosition.
  3. Add minimax with alpha-beta at depth 2 to 3.
  4. UI: a "Play vs computer" toggle with side and difficulty selectors; lock input while the AI is thinking; Undo takes back two plies in AI mode. Normalise the difficulty key casing.

Open question: depth 4 on the main thread may stall the UI. A Web Worker needs the engine code to be DOM-free, which game.js is not today.

Who benefits

Solo visitors to the hosted page, who currently have no one to play against.

Acceptance criteria

  • A player can start a game against the computer and pick a side
  • The computer always plays a legal move
  • The UI stays responsive while it thinks

Getting started

  • Relevant files: js/ai.js, js/game.js, js/config.js, index.html
  • How to run tests: npm install, then npm test and npm run lint
  • Related docs: docs/ARCHITECTURE.md, .github/CONTRIBUTING.md

Filed by repo-audit/full-audit at 8a2c86c. Severity: medium. Effort: L. audit-key: enhancement|js/ai.js|ChessAI._getAllLegalMoves

Dominant language
JavaScript
Stars
4
Forks
2
No merged PRs in 30d

Getting set up

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

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