Contributing
So you like chess, free software, and being useful? Great! We need your help making Lichess better. Even if you can't code, don't worry, there are plenty of ways to contribute to the Lichess project.
Donate
Do you want to help pay for the lichess.org servers and other needed finances? Check out the donation page. Your help will make a big difference.
Content
Lichess provides content across multiple areas. To support that, different teams are responsible for creating content and maintaining existing resources.
If you're interested in contributing, send a direct message (DM) on Lichess to @AAArmstark stating your interest and any areas you feel you might be most capable to help with.
Applicants must be 16 or older and their Lichess account(s) must be in good standing (no ToS violations).
Broadcast Team
The broadcast team is responsible for creating and maintaining the broadcasts on the official Lichess broadcast page.
They scout for upcoming tournaments, gather relevant information, and contact the organizers for the live PGN sources. Lichess also features user-created broadcasts which are then supervised by the team as well.
Another important contribution is to monitor ongoing broadcasts to fix transmission errors, correct schedules, and make any other necessary updates.
Social Media & Feed
Our homepage feed and social media channels are always looking for fresh news and ideas, seen by thousands of people every day!
You can help by suggesting what to post, crafting your own drafts, designing thumbnails, editing videos, and more.
So if you think you can help bring the latest news to a wider audience, know how to create thumbnails or edit videos, let us know by sending a direct message (DM) on Lichess to @AAArmstark!
Written Content
We are always looking for talented writers to help us produce written content for Lichess. Chess journalism and event coverage, as well as writing social media and feed posts as mentioned in the section above, are some of the ways you can help Lichess with written content.
Video Library Team
The responsibility of the video library team is to update and expand Lichess's video library. New videos need to be verified for quality, tagged by topic, and entered into the system. The team also reviews the existing library to ensure all videos are still available.
Opening Pages
Contributing to our opening pages is a great way to help spread chess knowledge and experience the joy of collaboration. Refer to our opening content page to learn how to contribute.
Studies
High-quality, instructive studies are always sought after. If you can create studies similar to these ones, send us a message!
Translate to your native language
Lichess currently supports 90+ different languages, but there's plenty more to do. Many more translations need to be started and several translations are incomplete. If you speak a language that isn't fully supported by Lichess, we'd love for you to help us out. Head to the translation centre to get started.
Provide a server for chess analysis
Lichess provides computer analysis for free to all users. The world-class open source Stockfish engine is used to analyse players' games (example of an analysed game).
This is a CPU-intensive operation, and requires many servers in order to provide fast and accurate analysis.
If you have spare CPU power, you can help by running the fishnet client.
Design
Lichess is constantly under development; new features and designs are implemented on a weekly (if not more frequent) basis, but we don't always get it right — that's where you can help us out. If you see something that could be improved, or done differently, there are a few ways you can see your change implemented:
- Design how you think the site should look in a graphical suite such as Photoshop. This will help the designers more directly approach and implement a solution. In most cases this is far more useful than a lengthy written document.
- Know a thing or two about HTML and CSS? Even better! Head on over to our GitHub page and create a pull request with the change you would like to see implemented. It's as easy as editing the source-code in-browser (right click > inspect element) and then pasting the changes to the necessary files in the Git repository.
We're also looking for skilled or enthusiastic graphic designers to help with upcoming projects. Leave a message on Discord in the #lichess-dev-onboarding channel if you're interested.
Write code
So you can code, eh? That's great! Join us on Discord and we'll find an interesting challenge for your skills. Also check out our wiki to learn how to install Lichess on your dev machine. New developers should check out our "good first issue" board.
Talk about Lichess
Being totally free, Lichess has no money for advertising itself. Therefore we rely on the community effort to spread the word and get more players to discover the site.
Do you have a blog? Write an article about Lichess!
Social media websites? Let your followers know about us!
Do you know chess players? Do you play in real world, over the board chess tournaments? Do you have contact with chess federations? Spread the word! We need more people like you.
Show Lichess TV on your website
Let your visitors spectate the best real-time chess matches on Lichess!
Share Your Stream on Lichess!
Streaming on Lichess is a great way to engage with the community and share your passion for chess. Streamers are the backbone of the chess landscape and help make chess more fun and accessible. Join our streamer program and get your own streamer profile, with your stream embedded!