Tic-tac-toe

A small full-stack tic-tac-toe proof of concept. The player faces off against an AI opponent: the React client renders the board and forwards moves to a Node/Express server that owns the game rules and AI move selection.

Project structure

tictactoe/
├── server/   # Node + Express + TypeScript API (game logic + AI)
└── web/      # React + TypeScript client (Create React App)

• server/ — exposes POST /player (apply a move, detect win/tie) and POST /ai (pick the next AI move and return the resulting board state). See server/README.md for the API contract and architecture notes.
• web/ — renders the board, tracks scores, and triggers AI turns through the API. See web/README.md for the client-side state and layout notes.

Requirements

• Node.js 14+ and npm
• Two free local ports: 3000 (web) and 3001 (server)

Startup guide

The server and the web client are independent npm projects. Install and run them in two terminals.

1. Start the server

cd server
npm install
npm start

The API will be available at http://localhost:3001. npm start runs the TypeScript compiler and then node dist/app.js.

2. Start the web client

cd web
npm install
npm start

The app opens at http://localhost:3000 and talks to the server at http://localhost:3001.

Notes

• The server is the source of truth for move validation, win/tie detection, and AI move selection — the client only renders state and forwards user input.
• AI strategy is intentionally simple (see the TODO list in server/README.md for the planned smarter heuristic).
• No persistence layer yet: scores live in client state, and there is no database. High-score storage and multiplayer (via Redis) are listed as next steps in the server README.
• The two sub-projects each have their own package.json, tsconfig.json, and .gitignore; there is no root-level workspace.