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Lichess

Lichess is a free, ad-free, open-source online chess server operated by a French nonprofit and powered entirely by volunteers and donations. It serves millions of games per day with live play, tournaments, puzzles, studies, broadcasts, analysis, and a public API. The server (lila), engine library (scalachess), mobile app, board UI (chessground), and distributed Stockfish analysis network (fishnet) are all open source under AGPL-3.0, MIT, and GPL-3.0 licenses. The Lichess API provides 185 documented operations across 23 functional areas including Account, Users, Games, Puzzles, Teams, Board, Bot, Challenges, Arena and Swiss Tournaments, Simuls, Studies, Broadcasts, Messaging, OAuth, FIDE, Opening Explorer, Tablebase, External Engine, and Cloud Analysis, with comprehensive ND-JSON streaming support.

agent native

Solid contracts, transparent operations, and an easy start — typically complete on four or five facets with one clear soft spot.

Kin Score

API Evangelist profiles Lichess the way a machine reads it — 64 machine-readable artifacts across 23 APIs, pulled from the provider's own public surface and indexed so a developer, an analyst, or an AI agent can evaluate it against every other provider on the network.

Every provider in the network is reduced to the same set of machine-readable artifacts — OpenAPI contracts, event specifications, GraphQL schemas, runnable collections, pricing and rate-limit signals, security posture, OAuth scopes, and the agent surfaces (MCP servers and skills) that let software drive the API on its own. We profile them because the interface is the part of a company you can actually inspect: it is a truer signal of what a provider does than any marketing page. From those artifacts we compute the Kin Score — Lichess scores 64.2/100 (strong), with a separate agent-readiness read of 61/100 (agent native). The full breakdown is below, followed by every artifact we hold — each card links through to its machine-readable definition on apis.io.

Kin Score

This is the API Evangelist rating — a single, repeatable read computed from the artifacts on this page. Green fill is points earned; the red track is points possible, so every bar shows earned-versus-possible at a glance.

Kin Score Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-07-27 · rubric v0.5
Composite quality — 64.2/100 · strong
Contract Quality 21.3 / 25
Developer Ergonomics 10.4 / 20
Commercial Clarity 8.4 / 20
Operational Transparency 6.8 / 13
Governance 7.3 / 12
Discoverability 10.0 / 10
Agent readiness — 61/100 · agent native
Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18
Agentic Access Contract 15 / 15
MCP Server 0 / 12
Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10
Idempotency 0 / 9
Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8
Request/Response Examples 7 / 7
Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7
Typed Event Surface 6 / 6
Agent Skills 0 / 5
Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4
Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

How we profile Lichess

Each block below is one kind of artifact we hold for Lichess. For each we say what it is and why it earns a place in the profile, then list every one we've indexed — capped at two rows, scroll within the panel for the rest.

APIs 23

Each API is captured as its own OpenAPI definition — every operation, parameter, and response. This is the single most useful machine-readable description of what an API does, and it's what lets us score, lint, mock, and generate against it without asking the provider for anything.

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

Lichess Account API

Read and write account information and preferences.

Lichess Analysis API

Access Lichess cloud evaluations database.

Lichess Board API

Play on Lichess with physical boards and third-party clients. Works with normal Lichess accounts. Engine play or assistance is [forbidden](https://lichess.org/page/fair-play). #...

Lichess Bot API

Play on Lichess as a bot. Allows engine play. Read the [blog post announcement of lichess bots](https://lichess.org/blog/WvDNticAAMu_mHKP/welcome-lichess-bots). Only works with ...

Lichess Broadcasts API

Relay chess events on Lichess. [Official broadcasts](https://lichess.org/broadcast) are maintained by Lichess, but you can [create your own broadcasts](https://lichess.org/broad...

Lichess Bulk pairings API

Create many games for other players. These endpoints are intended for tournament organisers.

Lichess Challenges API

Send and receive challenges to play. To create a lot of challenges, consider [bulk pairing](#tag/bulk-pairings/POST/api/bulk-pairing) instead.

Lichess External engine API

**This API is in alpha and subject to change.** Use or provide external engine analysis. External engines can provide analysis on pages like the [analysis board](https://lichess...

Lichess FIDE API

FIDE players and federations from [their public download](https://ratings.fide.com/download_lists.phtml).

Lichess Games API

Access games played on Lichess.

Lichess Messaging API

Private messages with other players.

Lichess OAuth API

Obtaining and revoking OAuth tokens. [Read about the Lichess API authentication methods and code examples](https://github.com/lichess-org/api/blob/master/example/README.md).

Lichess Opening Explorer API

Lookup positions from the [Lichess opening explorer](https://lichess.org/analysis#explorer). Runs . > [!important] > The hos...

Lichess Puzzles API

Fetch and solve [puzzles](https://lichess.org/training), view your puzzle history and dashboard. Our collection of puzzles is in the public domain, you can [download it here](ht...

Lichess Relations API

Access relations between users.

Lichess Simuls API

Access simuls played on Lichess.

Lichess Studies API

Access Lichess studies.

Lichess Tablebase API

Lookup positions from the [Lichess tablebase server](https://lichess.org/blog/W3WeMyQAACQAdfAL/7-piece-syzygy-tablebases-are-complete). > [!important] > The hostname for these e...

Lichess Teams API

Access and manage Lichess teams and their members.

Lichess Tournaments (Arena) API

Access Arena tournaments played on Lichess. [Official Arena tournaments](https://lichess.org/tournament) are maintained by Lichess, but you can [create your own Arena tournament...

Lichess Tournaments (Swiss) API

Access Swiss tournaments played on Lichess. [Read more about Swiss tournaments.](https://lichess.org/swiss).

Lichess TV API

Access Lichess TV channels and games. &

Lichess Users API

Access registered users on Lichess. - Each user blog exposes an atom (RSS) feed, like - User blogs mashup...

Scroll within the panel for all 23 ·

Open Collections 1

Open, tool-agnostic collections carry the same runnable value as Postman without locking you to one client — the portable, forkable form of the same exercise.

Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).

Lichess.org API reference

OPEN COLLECTION

Pricing Plans 1

Pricing is part of the interface. Machine-readable plans tell you what a tier costs and includes before you commit — one of the six things the Kin Score reads for commercial clarity.

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Lichess Plans Pricing

2 plans

PLANS

Rate Limits 1

Rate limits are the difference between a demo that works and a production integration that doesn't fall over. Publishing them is an operational-transparency signal — and a hard requirement for any agent that plans its own throughput.

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Lichess Rate Limits

16 limits

RATE LIMITS

Features 26

The notable capabilities this provider advertises, captured as structured features so they can be searched and compared instead of read one landing page at a time.

Notable capabilities this provider offers.

Free, ad-free, open-source online chess server operated by a French nonprofit, funded by donations
Full OpenAPI 3.1 specification with 185 operations across 23 tags published at github.com/lichess-org/api
Account, users, relations, and messaging endpoints for managing players and social graph
Games REST and ND-JSON streaming endpoints for current and historical games, including PGN export
TV channels and current best games for live broadcast and embedding
Daily puzzle, puzzle by ID, puzzle activity, and puzzle dashboard endpoints
Teams API for creating, joining, listing, and managing chess teams
Board API for playing real-time games with physical boards and third-party clients using regular accounts
Bot API for programmatic play by accounts upgraded to bot status, with streaming game state
Challenges API for issuing, accepting, declining, and listing challenges including AI and open challenges
Bulk pairings for programmatically creating many games at once
Arena and Swiss tournament APIs including create, update, terminate, join, withdraw, and result export
Simuls endpoint for current and upcoming simultaneous exhibitions
Studies API for exporting and importing study chapters in PGN
Broadcasts API for creating tournaments, rounds, and pushing PGN updates for live event coverage
FIDE endpoints exposing FIDE player and federation data
Opening Explorer with Masters database, Lichess database, and player database lookups
Tablebase endpoint for 7-piece Syzygy endgame results
External Engine API enabling user-hosted engines to power analysis on lichess.org/analysis
Cloud evaluation lookup for previously evaluated positions
OAuth 2.0 Authorization Code Flow with PKCE plus personal access tokens, long-lived (one year typical)
Newline-delimited JSON (ND-JSON) streaming for events, games, and TV feeds
Distributed Stockfish analysis network (fishnet) and open client-side Stockfish WASM builds
Public dataset exports of all rated games, puzzles, and computer evaluations at database.lichess.org
Official community SDKs in Python (berserk), Java (chariot), JavaScript/TypeScript (equine), .NET, and more
AGPL-3.0 licensed server (lila), with MIT scalachess engine library and GPL-3.0 mobile and tooling code

Scroll within the panel for all 26 ·

Event Specifications 1

Not every API is request/response. AsyncAPI describes the event-driven and streaming side — the webhooks and channels — so the asynchronous half of the interface is documented the same way the synchronous half is.

AsyncAPI definitions for this provider's event-driven and streaming APIs.

Lichess Streaming API

AsyncAPI description of Lichess's streaming surface. Lichess does NOT expose its public real-time API over WebSocket; instead, streams are delivered over plain HTTPS using chunk...

ASYNCAPI

Semantic Vocabularies 1

JSON-LD contexts give the data shared meaning across APIs. We profile them because semantics are what let a machine reconcile 'customer' here with 'customer' somewhere else.

JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.

Lichess Context

55 classes · 16 properties

JSON-LD

Spectral Rules 3

Governance rulesets we run against this provider's specs — the automated checks behind parts of the score. Profiling them makes the quality bar explicit and re-runnable, not a matter of opinion.

Lichess API Rules

9 rules · 1 errors · 7 warnings

SPECTRAL

Lichess API Rules

5 rules · 3 warnings

SPECTRAL

Lichess API Rules

11 rules · 4 errors · 6 warnings

SPECTRAL

JSON Schema 2

Standalone JSON Schema definitions describe the data models behind the API. We profile them so the shapes are validatable on their own — useful long after a single request is forgotten.

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

Lichess Game

20 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Lichess User

16 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Security Posture 3

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals — the evidence that a provider takes security seriously enough to document it. We profile it because you can't govern what you can't see.

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Lichess Authentication

oauth2 · 1 scheme

SECURITY

Lichess Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DNSSEC · DMARC

SECURITY

Lichess Vulnerability Disclosure

security.txt · contact published

SECURITY

Scopes 1

OAuth scopes are the vocabulary of least-privilege access. Profiling them shows exactly what an integration — or an agent acting on a user's behalf — is allowed to do.

OAuth scopes governing access to this provider's APIs.

Lichess Scopes

23 scopes · authorizationCode

23 scopes

SCOPES

Agentic Access 1

An x-agentic-access contract marks which operations are safe for an agent to run on its own and which need a human in the loop. It is the difference between an API an agent can use and one it can use safely.

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

Lichess Agentic Access

185 operations · 84 acting · 4 human-in-the-loop

185 operations · 84 acting

AGENTIC

Resources

Every other property we hold for Lichess — documentation, portals, status pages, policies, and corporate surface — grouped by the job it does, following the integrator's arc from getting started to running in production.

Get Started 3

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

Documentation 2

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

Company 1

The organization behind the API

Other 2

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

← All providers · Data indexed from github.com/api-evangelist/lichess · machine-readable index on apis.io