Chess Gif Generator from Lichess.org

Golang application that converts any Lichess game to an animated GIF with a modern web interface.

Try it out at https://gif.chesstools.org/.

Features

• Web Interface: User-friendly HTML form for easy GIF generation
• Board Flipping: Option to view games from Black's perspective
• Responsive Design: Works on desktop and mobile devices
• Fast Processing: Optimized for quick GIF generation
• Docker Ready: Containerized for easy deployment
• Heroku Compatible: Deploy to Heroku with one command
• API Endpoints: RESTful API for programmatic access

Live Demo

• Web Interface: Access the modern web UI at your deployed instance
• API Access: Use RESTful endpoints for integration

Table Of Contents

1. Installation
2. Usage
   • Web Interface
   • API Usage
   • CLI Usage
   • Server Usage
3. Deployment
4. Development
5. API Reference

Installation

Using Docker (recommended)

# Build for production
docker build -t giflichess:latest .

# Run in production
docker run -d -p 8080:8080 --name giflichess-prod giflichess:latest serve

# Or with docker-compose
docker-compose up -d

Heroku Deployment

This application is configured for easy Heroku deployment using heroku.yml:

1. Prerequisites:

   # Install Heroku CLI
   # Login to Heroku
   heroku login

2. Deploy:

   # Create Heroku app (if not exists)
   heroku create your-app-name
   
   # Deploy using Git
   git push heroku main
   
   # Open your deployed app
   heroku open

3. View logs:

   heroku logs --tail

Local Deployment

Build and run the server from the repo root (working directory must contain ./static; templates ship inside the binary):

go build -o giflichess .
./giflichess serve --port 8080 --concurrency 10
# or
go run main.go serve --port 8080 --concurrency 10

Override static files directory if needed:

GIFCHESS_STATIC_DIR=/path/to/static ./giflichess serve --port 8080

Web UI layout (self-contained)

• Home HTML: server/templates/index.gohtml composes partials/nav.gohtml and partials/footer.gohtml ({{template "nav" .}}, etc.).
• Chrome: Edit nav/footer in server/templates/partials/ only. There is no symlink or vendored chesstools-ui tree; everything under static/ ships in this repository.
• Assets: static/chesstools.svg (logo), static/css/ (theme.css, theme-root.css), static/js/ (tailwind-shell.js, shell.js). Served at /chesstools.svg, /css/*, and /js/*.