♟️ I built a Free API for Go (Baduk) Problems with 49k+ puzzles

#sideprojects #showdev #api #javascript

Hello Dev Community! 👋

I'm a developer who loves the board game Go (also known as Baduk or Weiqi). Recently, I wanted to build a simple app to practice "Tsumego" (Life & Death problems), but I realized there wasn't an easy-to-use API that provided a large dataset of problems for developers.

Most resources were either locked behind legacy websites or required complex parsing. So, I decided to build my own and open it up for everyone! 🚀

💡 What is Go Problem API?

It is a free RESTful API that serves over 49,500+ Go problems. It's designed for developers who want to build:

Go training apps
Daily puzzle widgets
Bots or AI training sets

🛠️ The Tech Stack

For those interested in how it was built, I used:

Backend: Node.js with Express
Database: PostgreSQL (hosted on Neon)
API Gateway: RapidAPI (for management and analytics)

I optimized the queries to ensure the latency remains low (usually under 20ms).

🚀 How to use it

It's hosted on RapidAPI. You can fetch a random problem easily. Here is a quick example using JavaScript (Fetch):

const url = '[https://go-problem-api.p.rapidapi.com/random](https://go-problem-api.p.rapidapi.com/random)';
const options = {
    method: 'GET',
    headers: {
        'x-rapidapi-key': 'YOUR_API_KEY_HERE',
        'x-rapidapi-host': 'go-problem-api.p.rapidapi.com'
    }
};

try {
    const response = await fetch(url, options);
    const result = await response.json();
    console.log(result);
} catch (error) {
    console.error(error);
}

🔗 Try it out

You can test the endpoints, see the response format, and get your free API key directly on RapidAPI:
👉 Get started with Go Problem API

💭 Feedback?

This is a side project I built to help the Go/Baduk community. I'm actively working to improve it, so your feedback is incredibly valuable.

Does the JSON structure make sense?
Are there specific features you'd like to see?
Did you run into any issues?

Please let me know in the comments below! If you build something cool with it, drop a link—I’d love to see it.

Happy Coding! 👨‍💻

DEV Community