Ended Bitboard engine, what's next?

Hey guys ;)

Today I finally finished my bitboard engine! Let me take you through its architecture, and then we'll explore the next steps.

The Core Architecture

All the engine logic lives in bitboard_engine.py, which contains the Move and BitboardEngine classes. However, for everything to sync up, we rely on a few other modules: board.py (with the Board class), move_gen.py (with AttackTables), and bitboard_utils.py (housing BitboardConstants).

Here is a breakdown of what each component does:

BitboardConstants: Contains static methods for fundamental bitwise operations like setting, popping, or getting a bit (set_bit, pop_bit, get_bit), along with constant masks for the board edges (like the A/H files or ranks 1/8).
Board: Implements the state of all pieces on the board, handles the initial setup, and tracks tracking piece movements.
AttackTables: Pre-computes static attack tables for knights and kings, and builds sliding attack tables for rooks, bishops, and queens using magic numbers.
Move: Describes individual moves, storing data like piece_moved, piece_captured, and flags for special moves (is_enpassant, is_castling, is_promotion). It also handles dictionaries for correct chess notation.

The Heart of the Engine

BitboardEngine is where all these components unite. The core functionality is split into two types of functions:

Move Generation: The get_valid_moves function generates legal moves using complex bitwise masking (check masks, pin masks, enemy attack masks, and edge masks).
State Management: Functions responsible for tracking the game state (like checkmate or draws) and preparing data for the future RL model.

Honestly, this was one of the hardest parts of the project due to the sheer amount of math and theory involved, but the performance payoff compared to the matrix engine will be massive.

What's Next?

Next, I’m going to write two "bridge" functions to map bitboard indices back to the matrix format for the UI. After that, it’s time for rigorous testing. To be honest, I won't rest easy until I test it thoroughly—especially regarding special moves and check detection states.
Once the tests pass, the Reinforcement Learning phase officially begins!

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions or suggestions about magic numbers or bitboard optimization, let's chat in the comments below!