The following instructions outline how to set up your development environment for starting development on Lichess mobile.
If you get stuck during the installation process the most suitable place to seek help is the #lichess-dev-onboarding
channel on Discord (https://discord.gg/lichess).
This project uses Flutter.
- Follow the flutter install guide. This project is meant to run on iOS and Android, so you need to follow the "Platform setup" section of that guide to install the iOS and/or Android platform.
Warning
Installing on Linux using snapd
might cause some problems building stockfish.
Installing flutter manually is a known workaround.
- Switch to the beta channel by running
flutter channel beta
andflutter upgrade
Note
We'll use Flutter's beta
channel while the app itself is in Beta.
- Ensure Flutter is correctly configured by running
flutter doctor
Note that this application is not meant to be run on web platform.
If you want to use FVM to manage your Flutter versions effectively, please consult the FVM (Flutter Version Management) guide for comprehensive instructions on installing Flutter on your specific operating system.
This project is currently using FVM 3.x.
Pro Tip: Remember to prepend the 'flutter' prefix when using FVM commands, like this: fvm flutter [command]
.
By default, the app will target the Lichess dev server, so you can start developing without setting up a local server.
During development, you may need a local lila (lichess server scala app) instance to work on this project.
If you work with a local lila, you will also need to setup lila-ws (websocket server).
The fastest and most straight-forward way to get started is using lila-docker.
Instructions to install both lila
and lila-ws
locally can be found in the lila wiki.
The mobile application is configured by default to target http://127.0.0.1:9663
and ws://127.0.0.1:9664
, so keep these when installing lila.
Do not use any scheme (https:// or ws://) in url in host, since it's already handled by URI helper methods
To run the application with a local server, you can use the following command:
flutter run --dart-define=LICHESS_HOST=localhost.9663 --dart-define=LICHESS_WS_HOST=localhost:9664
Note
The hosts above are the default ports for lila, if you have changed them, you will need to adjust the command accordingly.
Simply follow the instructions in the flutter guide to install Xcode and the iOS simulator.
If you are working with a local lila
server, you need to expose some ports from the emulator. You can do this by
running the following command (once the emulator is running):
adb reverse tcp:9663 tcp:9663
adb reverse tcp:9664 tcp:9664
This will allow the app to communicate with the local server. 9663 is for http
and 9664 is for websocket
. It assumes that the server is running on the
default ports.
When using lila-docker, first run ./lila-docker hostname
and select your
computer's IP address. Then, instead of the commands above, use this:
adb reverse tcp:9663 tcp:8080
adb reverse tcp:9664 tcp:8080
If Chrome instacrashes, it is likely you need to disable vulkan in emulator settings.
If you cannot access internet you can try launching the emulator with a DNS address:
$ emulator -avd <YourAVD> -dns-server 1.1.1.1
If you experience high lags or freezes, check the memory settings and be sure to enable hardware acceleration (-gpu host
)
Also disabling the snapshot storage may help:
$ emulator -avd <YourAVD> -no-snapshot-load -no-snapstorage -no-snapshot -no-snapshot-save'
This project uses code generation to generate data classes with freezed among other things.
We don't commit generated code to the repository, so you need to run it before anything else otherwise the project won't compile:
flutter pub get
dart run build_runner build
While developing you can use the watch command:
dart run build_runner watch
Flutter comes with an analyze
command to run static analysis. While developing you can run:
flutter analyze --watch
It will run analysis continuously, watching the filesystem for changes. It is important to always check for analysis errors.
Use the flutter run
command to run on an emulator or device. If you need to change the lichess host you can do it like so:
flutter run --dart-define=LICHESS_HOST=lichess.dev
--dart-define=LICHESS_WS_HOST=socket.lichess.dev
dart devtools
Then run the app with the flutter run
command above, and a link to the logging page will be printed in the console.