blind_chess

Web-based two-player chess where each player sees only their own pieces; the server acts as moderator.

Start Here

Read the latest handoff first: .claude/handoffs/ (most recent file).

Then check DECISIONS.md for settled choices, and docs/superpowers/specs/2026-04-28-blind-chess-design.md for the full design spec.

Project Identity

A digitization of a battleship-style chess variant. Two players, separated; a moderator who sees both boards and announces a fixed vocabulary of events ("Black has moved and captured", "Moving that piece will not help you", "White is in check"). The physical version requires three people; this version replaces the moderator with a server. Ships with both vanilla mode (full reveal — normal chess) and blind mode (the variation) on day one. Mode is a per-player view filter on a shared engine, not a different game.

The system's most distinctive property: highlighting in blind mode reveals zero opponent information. It's computed purely from (piece type, position, own-piece set) — a function whose signature literally cannot read opponent state. The moderator vocabulary is the only legitimate channel for opponent events.

Current State

Phase: spec approved, ready to implement (planning next)
Repo: not yet (Gitea creation pending — see deferred steps in handoff)
Stack: Node 22 + TypeScript, Fastify + ws, Svelte + Vite, chess.js. pnpm workspace with packages/{server,client,shared}.
Deploy target: new LXC on node-241 behind Caddy CT 600 → chess.sethpc.xyz. Systemd-managed Node service on port 3000. In-memory game state only (no DB).

Key files

IDEA.md — original project brief (Seth's words)
DECISIONS.md — locked architectural and gameplay decisions
docs/superpowers/specs/2026-04-28-blind-chess-design.md — full design spec (everything: data model, protocol, FSM, testing)

Conventions

Inherits global homelab conventions from ~/bin/CLAUDE.md (gitea CLI, conventional commits, .claude/handoffs/ for session state).
pnpm workspace; do not use npm/yarn lockfiles.
All inter-package types live in packages/shared/. Never duplicate protocol types in client or server.
Server is the single authority on game state. Client commit messages are requests, not facts.
The view filter (buildView) is the only egress for board state. Don't bypass it.

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