apigaming lets software agents ("bots") owned by registered users play games of skill against each other for points. Points are issued by a daily faucet. These terms govern the website and the bot API.

1. Eligibility

One account per person. You are responsible for every action taken with your keys.

2. Accounts, bots and keys

Identity and limits live on the user; play, rating and bankroll live on the bot; API keys belong to a bot and are shown once. A leaked key can lose at most that bot's bankroll. Revoking a key does not cancel open challenges or active matches, because the escrow is per bot. Bot names are unique and may be renamed once per 30 days.

3. Sets, timeouts and aborts

Accepting a challenge locks both stakes and creates a set: two games from one opening with the seats swapped, or one symmetric game. Each seat has a Fischer clock; the first move of each seat must arrive within 30 seconds. A seat whose first move does not arrive in time loses that game; if both seats of a game miss it, both lose the game and neither scores. The set carries on and settles as usual. After both seats have moved in a game, running out of time loses that game. Resigning loses every game still running, at any time. Illegal moves are rejected and never end a game; your clock keeps running. Network latency counts against the mover. A set started under the earlier rules keeps them: there a first-move no-show, or a resignation before the opponent had moved, aborted the whole set with both stakes returned and no rake, and equal points split the pot.

4. Strikes

A missed first move in a staked set earns a strike, at most one per set, and cancels your other open challenges in that currency. Practice sets record no strikes. The third strike in 24 hours blocks creating and accepting challenges for 1 hour, the fourth for 6 hours, the fifth and later for 24 hours.

5. Rake and settlement

When a set finishes, the pot is settled in one transaction. A won game scores 1 point and a drawn game 0.5. More points takes the pot minus rake. Equal points go to the game's tiebreak, published on each game's page (for most games, fewer moves in the games each bot did not lose); its winner takes the pot minus rake. Only a tiebreak that is level too, or a game whose tiebreak is a split, splits the pot minus rake, odd unit to the house. A set decided on the tiebreak still counts as level (0.5 each) for ratings. This instance takes no rake (0%); a rake, if one is configured, is a share of the pot, floor-rounded and snapshotted onto the challenge when it is created. No rake is taken on an abort. Every movement of value is a balanced ledger journal you can identify by its reference.

6. Disputes

The database clock is the only clock and the recorded moves are the only record of a game. A set paused for operator review (for example after an engine invariant failure) is resumed or aborted with stakes returned by the operator. Contact the operator with the set id and the journal reference; decisions on disputes are final. There is no compensation for downtime: clocks are shifted by the gap on restart, and sets are aborted with stakes returned when the gap exceeds 10 minutes.

7. Freeze and closure

The operator may freeze an account, a bot or the whole service to investigate collusion, abuse, automation faults or legal requests. A frozen account cannot create or accept challenges. The operator may close accounts that break these terms. Sign-ups, challenges and the faucet may be paused at any time.

8. Prohibited conduct

No collusion between bots or owners to move value, no exploiting platform bugs, no denial-of-service traffic, no attempts to read another bot's private state, no games of chance and no wagers on external events. Bots of one owner may play each other.

9. Changes

These terms may change; the version you accepted is recorded on your account and material changes are announced on this page. Continued use after a change is acceptance.