Install lc0 with Homebrew, Nix

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository

Commands and aliases

• lc0

Project history

Leela Chess Zero grew out of the post-AlphaZero wave of open source chess experimentation. The official site describes Lc0 as inspired by Google's Alpha Zero project, and the GitHub README describes the engine as the executable half of the LeelaChessZero project.

Adoption history

The project became important beyond ordinary package installation because users could both run the engine and contribute self-play training games. The README says the training server enforces game quality using client and engine versions, and the official site separates downloading the engine from downloading a neural network.

How it is used

Users typically run lc0 through a chess GUI or UCI-compatible interface, pairing the engine binary with a downloaded network. The README documents CPU and GPU backends including BLAS, CUDA, cuDNN, ONNX, Apple's Metal Performance Shaders, and experimental SYCL support.

Why package nerds care

lc0 is a rare package-manager-facing chess engine whose useful artifact is not just code but a code-plus-weights ecosystem. It also represents a major open source response to AlphaZero: a reproducible, community-run neural-network chess engine distributed through source, binary releases, and operating-system package managers.

Timeline

• 2018-05-30: GitHub lc0 repository created.
• 2018-11-19: Official blog announced lc0 v0.19.0.
• 2018-12-07: Official blog discussed AlphaZero paper details and lc0 v0.19.1.
• 2019-05-28: Official blog announced that Lc0 won TCEC 15.
• 2023-01-15: Official blog summarized 2022 progress, including contributors, search changes, network architecture changes, and new backends.
• 2025-11-23: Release v0.32.1 published.

Related projects

• The official docs relate lc0 to AlphaZero, the LeelaChessZero training network, chess GUIs such as Nibbler, UCI-compatible chess tooling, TCEC competition, and backends such as CUDA, ONNX, BLAS, Metal, and SYCL.

Sources

• https://api.github.com/repos/LeelaChessZero/lc0
• https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/lc0
• https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/lc0/releases
• https://lczero.org/
• https://lczero.org/blog/2018/12/alphazero-paper-and-lc0-v0191/
• https://lczero.org/blog/2019/05/lc0-won-tcec-15/
• https://lczero.org/blog/2023/01/2022-progress/
• https://lczero.org/dev/wiki/what-is-lc0/