HexWars

Real-time hex strategy: expand from a capital, route power through owned territory, claim neutral land, and break enemy borders.

License

HexWars is licensed under the Business Source License 1.1 (BSL).

BSL is a source-available license (not OSI open source). You may copy, modify, redistribute, and make non-production use of the code. Production use is allowed under the Additional Use Grant in LICENSE, except offering a competing commercial hosted multiplayer service.

Four years after a version is published (or on the Change Date, whichever comes first), that version becomes available under the GNU GPL v3.0 or later.

Some third-party assets (for example Kenney hex packs under apps/web/public/assets/) remain under their own licenses (typically CC0). Those terms apply to those files only.

Contributing

We welcome contributions. Please read:

• CONTRIBUTING.md — how to develop, test, and submit changes
• CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md — community expectations
• SECURITY.md — how to report vulnerabilities

Repository layout

Path	Description
apps/web	Player client (React, Vite, PixiJS)
apps/server	Game API and WebSocket server
apps/discord-bot	Optional Discord integration
packages/core	Shared game logic (@hexwars/core)
docs/	Design notes, CI, and architecture docs
infra/	Deployment helpers

Prerequisites

• Node.js 22+ (LTS recommended)
• pnpm 11 (packageManager in package.json is authoritative)

Quick start

pnpm install
cp .env.example .env.local
# Edit .env.local with local values (do not commit secrets)
pnpm dev

By default the web client runs on port 5173 and the server on port 8787. Point VITE_API_BASE_URL / VITE_WS_URL (and related targets in .env.example) at your local server.

Common commands

pnpm format:check   # formatting
pnpm lint           # ESLint
pnpm typecheck      # TypeScript across packages
pnpm test           # unit tests
pnpm build          # production builds
pnpm ci             # format + lint + typecheck + test + build

Package-scoped examples:

pnpm --filter @hexwars/web test
pnpm --filter @hexwars/server test
pnpm --filter @hexwars/core test

Documentation

• PRODUCT.md — product purpose and design principles
• DEPLOYMENT.md — production deployment
• docs/ — CI, gameplay, and other notes
• AGENTS.md — conventions for automated coding agents working in this repo

Copyright

Copyright (C) 2026 HexWars contributors.