Protocol

This page presents a dissection of the current stable Minecraft protocol. The current pre-release protocol is documented elsewhere. The protocol for Pocket Minecraft is substantially different, and is documented at Pocket Minecraft Protocol.

If you're having trouble, check out the FAQ or ask for help in the IRC channel (#mcdevs on irc.freenode.net).

Note: While you may use the contents of this page without restriction to create servers, clients, bots, etc… you still need to provide attribution to #mcdevs if you copy any of the contents of this page for publication elsewhere.

As of 1.7 strings are now UTF-8 (prefixed with a VarInt giving the string's length in bytes) instead of UTF-16.

As of 1.7.6 all UUIDs used in the protocol now contain '-'. The session server still returns them without

The changes between versions may be viewed at Protocol History

Definitions

Data types

All data sent over the network (except for VarInt and VarLong) is big-endian, that is the bytes are sent from most significant byte to least significant byte. The majority of everyday computers are little-endian, therefore it may be necessary to change the endianness before sending data over the network.

Name	Size (bytes)	Encodes	Notes
Boolean	1	Either false or true	True is encoded as 0x01, false as 0x00.
Byte	1	An integer between -128 and 127	Signed 8-bit integer, two's complement
Unsigned Byte	1	An integer between 0 and 255	Unsigned 8-bit integer
Short	2	An integer between -32768 and 32767	Signed 16-bit integer, two's complement
Unsigned Short	2	An integer between 0 and 65535	Unsigned 16-bit integer
Int	4	An integer between -2147483648 and 2147483647	Signed 32-bit integer, two's complement
Long	8	An integer between -9223372036854775808 and 9223372036854775807	Signed 64-bit integer, two's complement
Float	4	A single-precision 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point number
Double	8	A double-precision 64-bit IEEE 754 floating point number
String (n)	≥ 1 ≤ (n×3) + 3	A sequence of Unicode scalar values	UTF-8 string prefixed with its size in bytes as a VarInt. Maximum length of n characters, which varies by context. The encoding used on the wire is regular UTF-8, not Java's "slight modification". However, the length of the string for purposes of the length limit is its number of UTF-16 code units, that is, scalar values > U+FFFF are counted as two. Up to n × 3 bytes can be used to encode a UTF-8 string comprising n code units when converted to UTF-16, and both of those limits are checked. Maximum n value is 32767. The + 3 is due to the max size of a valid length VarInt.
Text Component	Varies	See Text formatting#Text components	Encoded as a NBT Tag, with the type of tag used depending on the case: As a String Tag: For components only containing text (no styling, no events etc.). As a Compound Tag: Every other case.
JSON Text Component	≥ 1 ≤ (262144×3) + 3	See Text formatting#Text components	The maximum permitted length when decoding is 262144, but the Notchian server since 1.20.3 refuses to encode longer than 32767. This may be a bug.
Identifier	≥ 1 ≤ (32767×3) + 3	See Identifier below	Encoded as a String with max length of 32767.
VarInt	≥ 1 ≤ 5	An integer between -2147483648 and 2147483647	Variable-length data encoding a two's complement signed 32-bit integer; more info in their section
VarLong	≥ 1 ≤ 10	An integer between -9223372036854775808 and 9223372036854775807	Variable-length data encoding a two's complement signed 64-bit integer; more info in their section
Entity Metadata	Varies	Miscellaneous information about an entity	See Entity_metadata#Entity Metadata Format
Slot	Varies	An item stack in an inventory or container	See Slot Data
NBT	Varies	Depends on context	See NBT
Position	8	An integer/block position: x (-33554432 to 33554431), z (-33554432 to 33554431), y (-2048 to 2047)	x as a 26-bit integer, followed by z as a 26-bit integer, followed by y as a 12-bit integer (all signed, two's complement). See also the section below.
Angle	1	A rotation angle in steps of 1/256 of a full turn	Whether or not this is signed does not matter, since the resulting angles are the same.
UUID	16	A UUID	Encoded as an unsigned 128-bit integer (or two unsigned 64-bit integers: the most significant 64 bits and then the least significant 64 bits)
BitSet	Varies	See #BitSet below	A length-prefixed bit set.
Fixed BitSet (n)	ceil(n / 8)	See #Fixed BitSet below	A bit set with a fixed length of n bits.
Optional X	0 or size of X	A field of type X, or nothing	Whether or not the field is present must be known from the context.
Array of X	count times size of X	Zero or more fields of type X	The count must be known from the context.
X Enum	size of X	A specific value from a given list	The list of possible values and how each is encoded as an X must be known from the context. An invalid value sent by either side will usually result in the client being disconnected with an error or even crashing.
Byte Array	Varies	Depends on context	This is just a sequence of zero or more bytes, its meaning should be explained somewhere else, e.g. in the packet description. The length must also be known from the context.

Identifier

Identifiers are a namespaced location, in the form of minecraft:thing. If the namespace is not provided, it defaults to minecraft (i.e. thing is minecraft:thing). Custom content should always be in its own namespace, not the default one. Both the namespace and value can use all lowercase alphanumeric characters (a-z and 0-9), dot (.), dash (-), and underscore (_). In addition, values can use slash (/). The naming convention is lower_case_with_underscores. More information. For ease of determining whether a namespace or value is valid, here are regular expressions for each:

• Namespace: [a-z0-9.-_]
• Value: [a-z0-9.-_/]

VarInt and VarLong

Variable-length format such that smaller numbers use fewer bytes. These are very similar to Protocol Buffer Varints: the 7 least significant bits are used to encode the value and the most significant bit indicates whether there's another byte after it for the next part of the number. The least significant group is written first, followed by each of the more significant groups; thus, VarInts are effectively little endian (however, groups are 7 bits, not 8).

VarInts are never longer than 5 bytes, and VarLongs are never longer than 10 bytes. Within these limits, unnecessarily long encodings (e.g. 81 00 to encode 1) are allowed.

Pseudocode to read and write VarInts and VarLongs:

private static final int SEGMENT_BITS = 0x7F;
private static final int CONTINUE_BIT = 0x80;

public int readVarInt() {
    int value = 0;
    int position = 0;
    byte currentByte;

    while (true) {
        currentByte = readByte();
        value |= (currentByte & SEGMENT_BITS) << position;

        if ((currentByte & CONTINUE_BIT) == 0) break;

        position += 7;

        if (position >= 32) throw new RuntimeException("VarInt is too big");
    }

    return value;
}

public long readVarLong() {
    long value = 0;
    int position = 0;
    byte currentByte;

    while (true) {
        currentByte = readByte();
        value |= (long) (currentByte & SEGMENT_BITS) << position;

        if ((currentByte & CONTINUE_BIT) == 0) break;

        position += 7;

        if (position >= 64) throw new RuntimeException("VarLong is too big");
    }

    return value;
}

public void writeVarInt(int value) {
    while (true) {
        if ((value & ~SEGMENT_BITS) == 0) {
            writeByte(value);
            return;
        }

        writeByte((value & SEGMENT_BITS) | CONTINUE_BIT);

        // Note: >>> means that the sign bit is shifted with the rest of the number rather than being left alone
        value >>>= 7;
    }
}

public void writeVarLong(long value) {
    while (true) {
        if ((value & ~((long) SEGMENT_BITS)) == 0) {
            writeByte(value);
            return;
        }

        writeByte((value & SEGMENT_BITS) | CONTINUE_BIT);

        // Note: >>> means that the sign bit is shifted with the rest of the number rather than being left alone
        value >>>= 7;
    }
}

Note Minecraft's VarInts are identical to LEB128 with the slight change of throwing a exception if it goes over a set amount of bytes.

Note that Minecraft's VarInts are not encoded using Protocol Buffers; it's just similar. If you try to use Protocol Buffers Varints with Minecraft's VarInts, you'll get incorrect results in some cases. The major differences:

• Minecraft's VarInts are all signed, but do not use the ZigZag encoding. Protocol buffers have 3 types of Varints: uint32 (normal encoding, unsigned), sint32 (ZigZag encoding, signed), and int32 (normal encoding, signed). Minecraft's are the int32 variety. Because Minecraft uses the normal encoding instead of ZigZag encoding, negative values always use the maximum number of bytes.
• Minecraft's VarInts are never longer than 5 bytes and its VarLongs will never be longer than 10 bytes, while Protocol Buffer Varints will always use 10 bytes when encoding negative numbers, even if it's an int32.

Sample VarInts:

Value	Hex bytes	Decimal bytes
0	0x00	0
1	0x01	1
2	0x02	2
127	0x7f	127
128	0x80 0x01	128 1
255	0xff 0x01	255 1
25565	0xdd 0xc7 0x01	221 199 1
2097151	0xff 0xff 0x7f	255 255 127
2147483647	0xff 0xff 0xff 0xff 0x07	255 255 255 255 7
-1	0xff 0xff 0xff 0xff 0x0f	255 255 255 255 15
-2147483648	0x80 0x80 0x80 0x80 0x08	128 128 128 128 8

Sample VarLongs:

Value	Hex bytes	Decimal bytes
0	0x00	0
1	0x01	1
2	0x02	2
127	0x7f	127
128	0x80 0x01	128 1
255	0xff 0x01	255 1
2147483647	0xff 0xff 0xff 0xff 0x07	255 255 255 255 7
9223372036854775807	0xff 0xff 0xff 0xff 0xff 0xff 0xff 0xff 0x7f	255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 127
-1	0xff 0xff 0xff 0xff 0xff 0xff 0xff 0xff 0xff 0x01	255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 1
-2147483648	0x80 0x80 0x80 0x80 0xf8 0xff 0xff 0xff 0xff 0x01	128 128 128 128 248 255 255 255 255 1
-9223372036854775808	0x80 0x80 0x80 0x80 0x80 0x80 0x80 0x80 0x80 0x01	128 128 128 128 128 128 128 128 128 1

Position

Note: What you are seeing here is the latest version of the Data types article, but the position type was different before 1.14.

64-bit value split into three signed integer parts:

• x: 26 MSBs
• z: 26 middle bits
• y: 12 LSBs

For example, a 64-bit position can be broken down as follows:

Example value (big endian): 01000110000001110110001100 10110000010101101101001000 001100111111

• The red value is the X coordinate, which is 18357644 in this example.
  
• The blue value is the Z coordinate, which is -20882616 in this example.
  
• The green value is the Y coordinate, which is 831 in this example.
  

Encoded as follows:

((x & 0x3FFFFFF) << 38) | ((z & 0x3FFFFFF) << 12) | (y & 0xFFF)

And decoded as:

val = read_long();
x = val >> 38;
y = val << 52 >> 52;
z = val << 26 >> 38;

Note: The above assumes that the right shift operator sign extends the value (this is called an arithmetic shift), so that the signedness of the coordinates is preserved. In many languages, this requires the integer type of val to be signed. In the absence of such an operator, the following may be useful:

if x >= 1 << 25 { x -= 1 << 26 }
if y >= 1 << 11 { y -= 1 << 12 }
if z >= 1 << 25 { z -= 1 << 26 }

Fixed-point numbers

Some fields may be stored as fixed-point numbers, where a certain number of bits represent the signed integer part (number to the left of the decimal point) and the rest represent the fractional part (to the right). Floating point numbers (float and double), in contrast, keep the number itself (mantissa) in one chunk, while the location of the decimal point (exponent) is stored beside it. Essentially, while fixed-point numbers have lower range than floating point numbers, their fractional precision is greater for higher values.

Prior to version 1.9 a fixed-point format with 5 fraction bits and 27 integer bits was used to send entity positions to the client. Some uses of fixed point remain in modern versions, but they differ from that format.

Most programming languages lack support for fractional integers directly, but you can represent them as integers. The following C or Java-like pseudocode converts a double to a fixed-point integer with n fraction bits:

 x_fixed = (int)(x_double * (1 << n));

And back again:

 x_double = (double)x_fixed / (1 << n);

Bit sets

The types BitSet and Fixed BitSet represent packed lists of bits. The Notchian implementation uses Java's BitSet class.

BitSet

Bit sets of type BitSet are prefixed by their length in longs.

Field Name	Field Type	Meaning
Length	VarInt	Number of longs in the following array. May be 0 (if no bits are set).
Data	Array of Long	A packed representation of the bit set as created by BitSet.toLongArray.

The ith bit is set when (Data[i / 64] & (1 << (i % 64))) != 0, where i starts at 0.

Fixed BitSet

Bit sets of type Fixed BitSet (n) have a fixed length of n bits, encoded as ceil(n / 8) bytes. Note that this is different from BitSet, which uses longs.

Field Name	Field Type	Meaning
Data	Byte Array (n)	A packed representation of the bit set as created by BitSet.toByteArray, padded with zeroes at the end to fit the specified length.

The ith bit is set when (Data[i / 8] & (1 << (i % 8))) != 0, where i starts at 0. This encoding is not equivalent to the long array in BitSet.

Other definitions

Term	Definition
Player	When used in the singular, Player always refers to the client connected to the server
Entity	Entity refers to any item, player, mob, minecart or boat in the world. This definition is subject to change as Notch extends the protocol
EID	An EID - or Entity ID - is a unique 4-byte integer used to identify a specific entity
XYZ	In this document, the axis names are the same as those shown in the debug screen (F3). Y points upwards, X points East, and Z points South.
See also: Units of Measurement

Packets

Protocol Version

1.7.2 - 4

1.7.6 - 5

1.8 - 47

Packet format

Field Name	Field Type	Notes
Length	VarInt	Length of packet data + length of the packet ID
Packet ID	VarInt
Data

Post compression

Once a Set Compression packet is sent, zlib compression is enabled for all following packets. The format of a packet changes slighty to include the size of the uncompressed packet.

Name	Type	Notes
Packet Length	VarInt	Length of Data + length of Data Length
Data Length	VarInt	Length of uncompressed Data or 0
Data		zlib compressed packet, including Packet ID

The length given by the Packet Length field is the number of bytes that remain in that packet, including the Data Length field.

If Data Length is set to zero, then the packet is uncompressed; otherwise it is the size of the uncompressed packet.

If compressed, the data's length must be equal to or over the threshold set in the Set Compression packet, otherwise the client/server will disconnect.

Compression can be disabled by sending a threshold of -1.

Handshaking

Serverbound

Handshake

This causes the server to switch into the target state.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x00	Handshake	Server	Protocol Version	VarInt	(4 as of 1.7.2)
			Server Address (hostname or IP)	String	localhost
			Server Port	Unsigned Short	25565
			Next state	VarInt	1 for status, 2 for login

Play

Clientbound

Keep Alive

The server will frequently send out a keep-alive, each containing a random ID. The client must respond with the same packet. If the client does not respond to them for over 30 seconds, the server kicks the client. Vice versa, if the server does not send any keep-alives for 20 seconds, the client will disconnect and yields a "Timed out" exception.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x00	Play	Client	Keep Alive ID	VarInt

Join Game

See Protocol Encryption for information on logging in.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x01	Play	Client	Entity ID	Int	The player's Entity ID
			Gamemode	Unsigned Byte	0: survival, 1: creative, 2: adventure. Bit 3 (0x8) is the hardcore flag
			Dimension	Byte	-1: nether, 0: overworld, 1: end
			Difficulty	Unsigned Byte	0 thru 3 for Peaceful, Easy, Normal, Hard
			Max Players	Unsigned Byte	Used by the client to draw the player list
			Level Type	String	default, flat, largeBiomes, amplified, default_1_1
			Reduced Debug Info	Boolean

If the Dimension isn't valid then the client will crash

Chat Message

Identifying the difference between Chat/System Message is important as it helps respect the user's chat visibility options. While position 2 accepts json formatting it will not display, old style formatting works

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x02	Play	Client	JSON Data	String	Chat , Limited to 32767 bytes
			Position	Byte	0 - Chat (chat box) ,1 - System Message (chat box), 2 - Above action bar

Malformed JSON will disconnect the client

Time Update

Time is based on ticks, where 20 ticks happen every second. There are 24000 ticks in a day, making Minecraft days exactly 20 minutes long.

The time of day is based on the timestamp modulo 24000. 0 is sunrise, 6000 is noon, 12000 is sunset, and 18000 is midnight.

The default SMP server increments the time by 20 every second.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x03	Play	Client	Age of the world	Long	In ticks; not changed by server commands
			Time of day	Long	The world (or region) time, in ticks. If negative the sun will stop moving at the Math.abs of the time

Entity Equipment

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x04	Play	Client	EntityID	VarInt	Entity's ID
			Slot	Short	Equipment slot: 0=held, 1-4=armor slot (1 - boots, 2 - leggings, 3 - chestplate, 4 - helmet)
			Item	Slot	Item in slot format

Spawn Position

Sent by the server after login to specify the coordinates of the spawn point (the point at which players spawn at, and which the compass points to). It can be sent at any time to update the point compasses point at.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x05	Play	Client	Location	Position	Spawn location

Update Health

Sent by the server to update/set the health of the player it is sent to.

Food saturation acts as a food "overcharge". Food values will not decrease while the saturation is over zero. Players logging in automatically get a saturation of 5.0. Eating food increases the saturation as well as the food bar.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x06	Play	Client	Health	Float	0 or less = dead, 20 = full HP
			Food	VarInt	0 - 20
			Food Saturation	Float	Seems to vary from 0.0 to 5.0 in integer increments

Respawn

To change the player's dimension (overworld/nether/end), send them a respawn packet with the appropriate dimension, followed by prechunks/chunks for the new dimension, and finally a position and look packet. You do not need to unload chunks, the client will do it automatically.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x07	Play	Client	Dimension	Int	-1: The Nether, 0: The Overworld, 1: The End
			Difficulty	Unsigned Byte	0 thru 3 for Peaceful, Easy, Normal, Hard.
			Gamemode	Unsigned Byte	0: survival, 1: creative, 2: adventure. The hardcore flag is not included
			Level Type	String	Same as Join Game

If the Dimension isn't valid then the client will crash

Avoid changing player's dimension to same dimension they were already in, weird bugs can occur i.e. such player will be unable to attack other players in new world (fixes after their death and respawn)

Player Position And Look

Updates the players position on the server. If the distance between the last known position of the player on the server and the new position set by this packet is greater than 100 units will result in the client being kicked for "You moved too quickly :( (Hacking?)" Also if the fixed-point number of X or Z is set greater than 3.2E7D the client will be kicked for "Illegal position"

Yaw is measured in degrees, and does not follow classical trigonometry rules. The unit circle of yaw on the XZ-plane starts at (0, 1) and turns counterclockwise, with 90 at (-1, 0), 180 at (0,-1) and 270 at (1, 0). Additionally, yaw is not clamped to between 0 and 360 degrees; any number is valid, including negative numbers and numbers greater than 360.

Pitch is measured in degrees, where 0 is looking straight ahead, -90 is looking straight up, and 90 is looking straight down.

The yaw of player (in degrees), standing at point (x0,z0) and looking towards point (x,z) one can be calculated with:

 l = x-x0
 w = z-z0
 c = sqrt( l*l + w*w )
 alpha1 = -arcsin(l/c)/PI*180
 alpha2 =  arccos(w/c)/PI*180
 if alpha2 > 90 then
   yaw = 180 - alpha1
 else
   yaw = alpha1

You can get a unit vector from a given yaw/pitch via:

 x = -cos(pitch) * sin(yaw)
 y = -sin(pitch)
 z =  cos(pitch) * cos(yaw)

About the flags field:

 <Dinnerbone> It's a bitfield, X/Y/Z/Y_ROT/X_ROT. If X is set, the x value is relative and not absolute.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x08	Play	Client	X	Double	Absolute/Relative position
			Y	Double	Absolute/Relative position
			Z	Double	Absolute/Relative position
			Yaw	Float	Absolute/Relative rotation on the X Axis, in degrees
			Pitch	Float	Absolute/Relative rotation on the Y Axis, in degrees
			Flags	Byte	X 0x01 Y 0x02 Z 0x04 Y_ROT 0x08 X_ROT 0x10

Held Item Change

Sent to change the player's slot selection

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x09	Play	Client	Slot	Byte	The slot which the player has selected (0-8)

Use Bed

This packet tells that a player goes to bed.

The client with the matching Entity ID will go into bed mode.

This Packet is sent to all nearby players including the one sent to bed.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x0A	Play	Client	Entity ID	VarInt	Player ID
			Location	Position	Block location of the head part of the bed

Animation

Sent whenever an entity should change animation.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x0B	Play	Client	Entity ID	VarInt	Player ID
			Animation	Unsigned Byte	Animation ID

Animation can be one of the following values:

ID	Animation
0	Swing arm
1	Damage animation
2	Leave bed
3	Eat food
4	Critical effect
5	Magic critical effect
102	(unknown)
104	Crouch
105	Uncrouch

Spawn Player

This packet is sent by the server when a player comes into visible range, not when a player joins.

Servers can, however, safely spawn player entities for players not in visible range. The client appears to handle it correctly.

When in online-mode the uuids must be valid and have valid skin blobs, in offline-mode uuid v3 is used.

For NPCs UUID v2 should be used. Note:

  <+Grum> i will never confirm this as a feature you know that :)

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name		Field Type	Notes
0x0C	Play	Client	Entity ID		VarInt	Player's Entity ID
			Player UUID		UUID	Player's UUID
			X		Int	Player X as a Fixed-Point number
			Y		Int	Player X as a Fixed-Point number
			Z		Int	Player X as a Fixed-Point number
			Yaw		Byte	Player rotation as a packed byte
			Pitch		Byte	Player rotation as a packet byte
			Current Item		Short	The item the player is currently holding. Note that this should be 0 for "no item", unlike -1 used in other packets. A negative value crashes clients.
			Metadata		Metadata	The client will crash if no metadata is sent

The client will crash if no metadata is sent

Collect Item

Sent by the server when someone picks up an item lying on the ground - its sole purpose appears to be the animation of the item flying towards you. It doesn't destroy the entity in the client memory, and it doesn't add it to your inventory. The server only checks for items to be picked up after each Player Position [and Player Position & Look] packet sent by the client.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x0D	Play	Client	Collected Entity ID	VarInt
			Collector Entity ID	VarInt

Spawn Object

Sent by the server when an Object/Vehicle is created.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x0E	Play	Client	Entity ID	VarInt	Entity ID of the object
			Type	Byte	The type of object (See Objects)
			X	Int	X position as a Fixed-Point number
			Y	Int	Y position as a Fixed-Point number
			Z	Int	Z position as a Fixed-Point number
			Pitch	Byte	The pitch in steps of 2p/256
			Yaw	Byte	The yaw in steps of 2p/256
			Data	Object Data

Spawn Mob

Sent by the server when a Mob Entity is Spawned

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x0F	Play	Client	Entity ID	VarInt	Entity's ID
			Type	Unsigned Byte	The type of mob. See Mobs
			X	Int	X position as a Fixed-Point number
			Y	Int	Y position as a Fixed-Point number
			Z	Int	Z position as a Fixed-Point number
			Yaw	Byte	The yaw in steps of 2p/256
			Pitch	Byte	The pitch in steps of 2p/256
			Head Pitch	Byte	The pitch in steps of 2p/256
			Velocity X	Short
			Velocity Y	Short
			Velocity Z	Short
			Metadata	Metadata

Spawn Painting

This packet shows location, name, and type of painting.

Calculating the center of an image: given a (width x height) grid of cells, with (0, 0) being the top left corner, the center is (max(0, width / 2 - 1), height / 2). E.g.

2x1 (1, 0) 4x4 (1, 2)

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x10	Play	Client	Entity ID	VarInt	Entity's ID
			Title	String	Name of the painting. Max length 13
			Location	Position	Center coordinates
			Direction	Unsigned Byte	Direction the painting faces (0 -z, 1 -x, 2 +z, 3 +x)

Spawn Experience Orb

Spawns one or more experience orbs.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x11	Play	Client	Entity ID	VarInt	Entity's ID
			X	Int	X position as a Fixed-Point number
			Y	Int	Y position as a Fixed-Point number
			Z	Int	Z position as a Fixed-Point number
			Count	Short	The amount of experience this orb will reward once collected

Entity Velocity

Velocity is believed to be in units of 1/8000 of a block per server tick (50ms); for example, -1343 would move (-1343 / 8000) = −0.167875 blocks per tick (or −3,3575 blocks per second).

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x12	Play	Client	Entity ID	VarInt	Entity's ID
			Velocity X	Short	Velocity on the X axis
			Velocity Y	Short	Velocity on the Y axis
			Velocity Z	Short	Velocity on the Z axis

Destroy Entities

Sent by the server when an list of Entities is to be destroyed on the client.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x13	Play	Client	Count	VarInt	Length of following array
			Entity IDs	Array of VarInt	The list of entities of destroy

Entity

Most entity-related packets are subclasses of this packet. When sent from the server to the client, it may initialize the entry.

For player entities, either this packet or any move/look packet is sent every game tick. So the meaning of this packet is basically that the entity did not move/look since the last such packet.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x14	Play	Client	Entity ID	VarInt	Entity's ID

Entity Relative Move

This packet is sent by the server when an entity moves less then 4 blocks; if an entity moves more than 4 blocks Entity Teleport should be sent instead.

This packet allows at most four blocks movement in any direction, because byte range is from -128 to 127.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x15	Play	Client	Entity ID	VarInt	Entity's ID
			DX	Byte	Change in X position as a Fixed-Point number
			DY	Byte	Change in Y position as a Fixed-Point number
			DZ	Byte	Change in Z position as a Fixed-Point number
			On Ground	Boolean

Entity Look

This packet is sent by the server when an entity rotates. Example: "Yaw" field 64 means a 90 degree turn.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x16	Play	Client	Entity ID	VarInt	Entity's ID
			Yaw	Byte	The X Axis rotation as a fraction of 360
			Pitch	Byte	The Y Axis rotation as a fraction of 360
			On Ground	Boolean

Entity Look and Relative Move

This packet is sent by the server when an entity rotates and moves. Since a byte range is limited from -128 to 127, and movement is offset of fixed-point numbers, this packet allows at most four blocks movement in any direction. (-128/32 == -4)

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x17	Play	Client	Entity ID	VarInt	Entity's ID
			DX	Byte	Change in X position as a Fixed-Point number
			DY	Byte	Change in Y position as a Fixed-Point number
			DZ	Byte	Change in Z position as a Fixed-Point number
			Yaw	Byte	The X Axis rotation as a fraction of 360
			Pitch	Byte	The Y Axis rotation as a fraction of 360
			On Ground	Boolean

Entity Teleport

This packet is sent by the server when an entity moves more than 4 blocks.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x18	Play	Client	Entity ID	VarInt	Entity's ID
			X	Int	X position as a Fixed-Point number
			Y	Int	Y position as a Fixed-Point number
			Z	Int	Z position as a Fixed-Point number
			Yaw	Byte	The X Axis rotation as a fraction of 360
			Pitch	Byte	The Y Axis rotation as a fraction of 360
			On Ground	Boolean

Entity Head Look

Changes the direction an entity's head is facing.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x19	Play	Client	Entity ID	VarInt	Entity's ID
			Head Yaw	Byte	Head yaw in steps of 2p/256

Entity Status

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x1A	Play	Client	Entity ID	Int	Entity's ID
			Entity Status	Byte	See below

Entity Status	Meaning
0	Something related to living entities?
1	Something related to the player entity?
2	Living Entity hurt
3	Living Entity dead
4	Iron Golem throwing up arms
6	Wolf/Ocelot/Horse taming - Spawn "heart" particles
7	Wolf/Ocelot/Horse tamed - Spawn "smoke" particles
8	Wolf shaking water - Trigger the shaking animation
9	(of self) Eating accepted by server
10	Sheep eating grass
11	Iron Golem handing over a rose
12	Villager mating - Spawn "heart" particles
13	Spawn particles indicating that a villager is angry and seeking revenge
14	Spawn happy particles near a villager
15	Witch animation - Spawn "magic" particles
16	Zombie converting into a villager by shaking violently
17	Firework exploding
18	Animal in love (ready to mate) - Spawn "heart" particles

Attach Entity

This packet is sent when a player has been attached to an entity (e.g. Minecart)

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x1B	Play	Client	Entity ID	Int	Entity's ID
			Vehicle ID	Int	Vechicle's Entity ID
			Leash	Bool	If true leashes the entity to the vehicle

Entity Metadata

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x1C	Play	Client	Entity ID	VarInt	Entity's ID
			Metadata	Metadata

Entity Effect

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x1D	Play	Client	Entity ID	VarInt	Entity's ID
			Effect ID	Byte	See [[1]]
			Amplifier	Byte
			Duration	VarInt
			Hide Particles	Boolean

Remove Entity Effect

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x1E	Play	Client	Entity ID	VarInt	Entity's ID
			Effect ID	Byte

Set Experience

Sent by the server when the client should change experience levels.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x1F	Play	Client	Experience bar	Float	Between 0 and 1
			Level	VarInt
			Total Experience	VarInt

Entity Properties

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x20	Play	Client	Entity ID	VarInt	Entity's ID
			Count	Int	Length of following array
			Properties	Array of Property Data

Property Data structure:

Field Name	Field Type	Notes
Key	String
Value	Double
List Length	VarInt	Number of list elements that follow.
Modifiers	Array of Modifier Data	http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Attribute#Modifiers

Known key values:

Key	Default	Min	Max	Label
generic.maxHealth	20.0	0.0	Double.MaxValue	Max Health
generic.followRange	32.0	0.0	2048.0	Follow Range
generic.knockbackResistance	0.0	0.0	1.0	Knockback Resistance
generic.movementSpeed	0.699999988079071	0.0	Double.MaxValue	Movement Speed
generic.attackDamage	2.0	0.0	Double.MaxValue
horse.jumpStrength	0.7	0.0	2.0	Jump Strength
zombie.spawnReinforcements	0.0	0.0	1.0	Spawn Reinforcements Chance

Modifier Data structure:

Field Name	Field Type	Notes
UUID	128-bit integer
Amount	Double
Operation	Byte

Chunk Data

Chunks are not unloaded by the client automatically. To unload chunks, send this packet with ground-up continuous=true and no 16^3 chunks (eg. primary bit mask=0). The server does not send skylight information for nether-chunks, it's up to the client to know if the player is currently in the nether. You can also infer this information from the primary bitmask and the amount of uncompressed bytes sent.

See also: SMP Map Format

Changes in 1.8:

• Data value section removed
• Extended id section removed
• Block id section is now a unsigned short (little endian) per a block
• The block id is equal to (id << 4) | data

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x21	Play	Client	Chunk X	Int	Chunk X coordinate
			Chunk Z	Int	Chunk Z coordinate
			Ground-Up continuous	Boolean	This is True if the packet represents all sections in this vertical column, where the primary bit map specifies exactly which sections are included, and which are air
			Primary bit map	Unsigned Short	Bitmask with 1 for every 16x16x16 section which data follows in the compressed data.
			Size	VarInt	Size of chunk data
			Data	Byte array	The chunk data is not compressed as of 14w28a

Multi Block Change

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x22	Play	Client	Chunk X	Int	Chunk X coordinate
			Chunk Z	Int	Chunk Z Coordinate
			Record count	VarInt	The number of blocks affected
			Records	Array of Records

Record

Bit mask	Width	Meaning
00 FF	8 bits	Y co-ordinate
0F 00	4 bits	Z co-ordinate, relative to chunk
F0 00	4 bits	X co-ordinate, relative to chunk
?	VarInt	Block ID

Block Change

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x23	Play	Client	Location	Position	Block Coordinates
			Block ID	VarInt	The new block ID for the block. id << 4 | data

Block Action

This packet is used for a number of things:

• Chests opening and closing
• Pistons pushing and pulling
• Note blocks playing

See Also: Block Actions

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x24	Play	Client	Location	Position	Block Coordinates
			Byte 1	Unsigned Byte	Varies depending on block - see Block_Actions
			Byte 2	Unsigned Byte	Varies depending on block - see Block_Actions
			Block Type	VarInt	The block type for the block

Block Break Animation

0-9 are the displayable destroy stages and each other number means that there is no animation on this coordinate.

You can also set an animation to air! The animation will still be visible.

If you need to display several break animations at the same time you have to give each of them a unique Entity ID.

Also if you set the coordinates to a special block like water etc. it won't show the actual break animation but some other interesting effects. (Water will lose it's transparency)

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x25	Play	Client	Entity ID	VarInt	Entity's ID
			Location	Position	Block Position
			Destroy Stage	Byte	0 - 9

Map Chunk Bulk

See also: SMP Map Format

1.8 changes at #Chunk_Data

To reduce the number of bytes this packet is used to send chunks together for better compression results.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x26	Play	Client	Sky light sent	Bool	Whether or not the chunk data contains a light nibble array. This is true in the main world, false in the end + nether
			Chunk column count	VarInt	The number of chunk in this packet
			Meta information	Meta	See below
			Data	Byte Array	Chunk data. Uncompressed as of 14w28a

Meta

Field Name	Field Type	Notes
Chunk X	Int	The X Coordinate of the chunk
Chunk Z	Int	The Z Coordinate of the chunk
Primary bitmap	Unsigned Short	A bitmap which specifies which sections are not empty in this chunk

Explosion

Sent when an explosion occurs (creepers, TNT, and ghast fireballs).

Each block in Records is set to air. Coordinates for each axis in record is int(X) + record.x

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x27	Play	Client	X	Float
			Y	Float
			Z	Float
			Radius	Float	Currently unused in the client
			Record count	Int	This is the count, not the size. The size is 3 times this value.
			Records	(Byte, Byte, Byte) × count	Each record is 3 signed bytes long, each bytes are the XYZ (respectively) offsets of affected blocks.
			Player Motion X	Float	X velocity of the player being pushed by the explosion
			Player Motion Y	Float	Y velocity of the player being pushed by the explosion
			Player Motion Z	Float	Z velocity of the player being pushed by the explosion

Effect

Sent when a client is to play a sound or particle effect.

By default, the minecraft client adjusts the volume of sound effects based on distance. The final boolean field is used to disable this, and instead the effect is played from 2 blocks away in the correct direction. Currently this is only used for effect 1013 (mob.wither.spawn), and is ignored for any other value by the client.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x28	Play	Client	Effect ID	Int	The ID of the effect, see below.
			Location	Position	The location of the effect
			Data	Int	Extra data for certain effects, see below.
			Disable relative volume	Bool	See above

Effects

ID	Name
Sound
1000	random.click
1001	random.click
1002	random.bow
1003	random.door_open or random.door_close (50/50 chance)
1004	random.fizz
1005	Play a music disc. Data Record ID
(1006 not assigned)
1007	mob.ghast.charge
1008	mob.ghast.fireball
1009	mob.ghast.fireball, but with a lower volume.
1010	mob.zombie.wood
1011	mob.zombie.metal
1012	mob.zombie.woodbreak
1013	mob.wither.spawn
1014	mob.wither.shoot
1015	mob.bat.takeoff
1016	mob.zombie.infect
1017	mob.zombie.unfect
1018	mob.enderdragon.end
1020	random.anvil_break
1021	random.anvil_use
1022	random.anvil_land
Particle
2000	Spawns 10 smoke particles, e.g. from a fire. Data direction, see below
2001	Block break. Data Block ID
2002	Splash potion. Particle effect + glass break sound. Data Potion ID
2003	Eye of ender entity break animation - particles and sound
2004	Mob spawn particle effect: smoke + flames
2005	Spawn "happy villager" effect (green crosses), used for bonemealing vegetation.

Smoke directions:

ID	Direction
0	South - East
1	South
2	South - West
3	East
4	(Up or middle ?)
5	West
6	North - East
7	North
8	North - West

Sound Effect

Used to play a sound effect on the client.

All known sound effect names can be seen here.

Custom sounds may be added by resource packs

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x29	Play	Client	Sound name	String
			Effect position X	Int	Effect X multiplied by 8
			Effect position Y	Int	Effect Y multiplied by 8
			Effect position Z	Int	Effect Z multiplied by 8
			Volume	Float	1 is 100%, can be more
			Pitch	Unsigned Byte	63 is 100%, can be more

Particle

Displays the named particle

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x2A	Play	Client	Particle Id	Int
			Long Distance	Boolean	If true, particle distance increases from 256 to 65536.
			X	Float	X position of the particle
			Y	Float	Y position of the particle
			Z	Float	Z position of the particle
			Offset X	Float	This is added to the X position after being multiplied by random.nextGaussian()
			Offset Y	Float	This is added to the Y position after being multiplied by random.nextGaussian()
			Offset Z	Float	This is added to the Z position after being multiplied by random.nextGaussian()
			Particle data	Float	The data of each particle
			Number of particles	Int	The number of particles to create
			Data	Array of VarInt	Length depends on particle. ICON_CRACK, BLOCK_CRACK, and BLOCK_DUST have lengths of 2, the rest have 0.

Change Game State

It appears when a bed can't be used as a spawn point and when the rain state changes.

The class has an array of strings linked to reason codes 0, 1, 2, and 3 but only the codes for 1 and 2 are null.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x2B	Play	Client	Reason	Unsigned Byte
			Value	Float	Depends on reason

Reason codes

Code	Effect	Notes
0	Invalid Bed	"tile.bed.notValid"
1	End raining
2	Begin raining
3	Change game mode	"gameMode.changed" 0 - Survival, 1 - Creative, 2 - Adventure
4	Enter credits
5	Demo messages	0 - Show welcome to demo screen, 101 - Tell movement controls, 102 - Tell jump control, 103 - Tell inventory control
6	Arrow hitting player	Appears to be played when an arrow strikes another player in Multiplayer
7	Fade value	The current darkness value. 1 = Dark, 0 = Bright, Setting the value higher causes the game to change color and freeze
8	Fade time	Time in ticks for the sky to fade

Spawn Global Entity

With this packet, the server notifies the client of thunderbolts striking within a 512 block radius around the player. The coordinates specify where exactly the thunderbolt strikes.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x2C	Play	Client	Entity ID	VarInt	The entity ID of the thunderbolt
			Type	Byte	The global entity type, currently always 1 for thunderbolt.
			X	Int	Thunderbolt X a fixed-point number
			Y	Int	Thunderbolt Y a fixed-point number
			Z	Int	Thunderbolt Z a fixed-point number

Open Window

This is sent to the client when it should open an inventory, such as a chest, workbench, or furnace. This message is not sent anywhere for clients opening their own inventory.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x2D	Play	Client	Window id	Unsigned Byte	A unique id number for the window to be displayed. Notchian server implementation is a counter, starting at 1.
			Inventory Type	String	The window type to use for display. Check below
			Window title	Chat	The title of the window.
			Number of Slots	Unsigned Byte	Number of slots in the window (excluding the number of slots in the player inventory).
			Entity ID	Int	EntityHorse's entityId. Only sent when window type is equal to "EntityHorse".

See inventory windows for further information.

Close Window

This packet is sent from the server to the client when a window is forcibly closed, such as when a chest is destroyed while it's open.

Note, notchian clients send a close window message with window id 0 to close their inventory even though there is never an Open Window message for inventory.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x2E	Play	Client	Window ID	Unsigned Byte	This is the id of the window that was closed. 0 for inventory.

Set Slot

Sent by the server when an item in a slot (in a window) is added/removed.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x2F	Play	Client	Window ID	Byte	The window which is being updated. 0 for player inventory. Note that all known window types include the player inventory. This packet will only be sent for the currently opened window while the player is performing actions, even if it affects the player inventory. After the window is closed, a number of these packets are sent to update the player's inventory window (0).
			Slot	Short	The slot that should be updated
			Slot data	Slot

Window Items

The inventory slots

Sent by the server when an item in a slot (in a window) is added/removed. This includes the main inventory, equipped armour and crafting slots.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x30	Play	Client	Window ID	Unsigned Byte	The id of window which items are being sent for. 0 for player inventory.
			Count	Short	The number of slots (see below)
			Slot data	Array of Slots

See inventory windows for further information about how slots are indexed.

Window Property

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x31	Play	Client	Window ID	Unsigned Byte	The id of the window.
			Property	Short	Which property should be updated.
			Value	Short	The new value for the property.

Furnace

Properties:

• 0: Progress arrow
• 1: Fire icon (fuel)

Values:

• 0-200 for progress arrow
• 0-200 for fuel indicator

Ranges are presumably in in-game ticks

Enchantment Table

Properties: 0, 1 or 2 depending on the "enchantment slot" being given.

Values: The enchantment's level.

Beacon

• 0: Power level
• 1: Potion effect one
• 2: Potion effect two

Anvil

• 0: Maximum cost

Brewing Stand

• 0: Brew time

Brew time is a value between 0 and 400, with 400 making the arrow empty, and 0 making the arrow full.

Confirm Transaction

A packet from the server indicating whether a request from the client was accepted, or whether there was a conflict (due to lag). This packet is also sent from the client to the server in response to a server transaction rejection packet.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x32	Play	Client	Window ID	Unsigned Byte	The id of the window that the action occurred in.
			Action number	Short	Every action that is to be accepted has a unique number. This field corresponds to that number.
			Accepted	Bool	Whether the action was accepted.

Update Sign

This message is sent from the server to the client whenever a sign is discovered or created. This message is NOT sent when a sign is destroyed or unloaded.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x33	Play	Client	Location	Position	Block Coordinates
			Line 1	Chat	First line of text in the sign
			Line 2	Chat	Second line of text in the sign
			Line 3	Chat	Third line of text in the sign
			Line 4	Chat	Fourth line of text in the sign

Maps

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x34	Play	Client	Item Damage	VarInt	The damage value of the map being modified
			Scale	Byte
			Length	VarInt
			Icons	3 * length bytes	First byte, 0xF0 = Direction, 0x0F = Type. Second byte, X. Third byte, Y
			Columns	Byte
			Rows	Byte	Only if Columns is more than 0
			X	Byte	Only if Columns is more than 0
			Y	Byte	Only if Columns is more than 0
			Length	VarInt	Only if Columns is more than 0
			Data	Length bytes	Only if Columns is more than 0

Update Block Entity

Essentially a block update on a block entity.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x35	Play	Client	Location	Position
			Action	Unsigned Byte	The type of update to perform
			NBT Data	Byte Array	If not present then its TAG_END (0)

Actions

• 1: Set SpawnPotentials of a mob spawner
• 2: Set command block text (command and last execution status)
• 3: Set the level, primary, and secondary powers of a beacon
• 4: Set rotation and skin of mob head
• 5: Set type of flower in flower pot
• 6: Set base color and patterns on a banner

Sign Editor Open

Sent on placement of sign.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x36	Play	Client	Location	Position	Block coordinates

Statistics

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name		Field Type	Notes
0x37	Play	Client	Count		VarInt	Number of entries
			Entry	Statistic's name	String	https://gist.github.com/thinkofdeath/a1842c21a0cf2e1fb5e0
				Value	VarInt	The amount to set it to

Player List Item

Sent by the notchian server to update the user list (<tab> in the client).

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name			Field Type	Notes
0x38	Play	Client	Action			VarInt
			Length			VarInt	The following fields are repeated length times
			UUID			UUID	The uuid of the player
			Action
			0 (ADD_PLAYER)	Name		String
				Number of properties		VarInt
				Properties	Name	String
					Value	String
					Is Signed	Boolean
					Signature	String	Only if Is Signed is true
				Gamemode		VarInt
				Ping		VarInt
				Has Display Name		Boolean
				Display Name		Chat	Only send if Has Diplay Name is true
			1 (UPDATE_GAMEMODE)	Gamemode		VarInt
			2 (UPDATE_LATENCY)	Ping		VarInt
			3 (UPDATE_DISPLAY_NAME)	Has Display Name		Boolean
				Display Name		Chat	Only send if Has Diplay Name is true
			4 (REMOVE_PLAYER)

Player Abilities

The latter 2 floats are used to indicate the walking and flying speeds respectively, while the first byte is used to determine the value of 4 booleans.

The flags are whether damage is disabled (god mode, 8, bit 3), whether the player can fly (4, bit 2), whether the player is flying (2, bit 1), and whether the player is in creative mode (1, bit 0).

To get the values of these booleans, simply AND (&) the byte with 1,2,4 and 8 respectively, to get the 0 or 1 bitwise value. To set them OR (|) them with their repspective masks.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x39	Play	Client	Flags	Byte
			Flying speed	Float	previous integer value divided by 250
			Walking speed	Float	previous integer value divided by 250

Tab-Complete

The server responds with a list of auto-completions of the last word sent to it. In the case of regular chat, this is a player username. Command names and parameters are also supported.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x3A	Play	Client	Count	VarInt	Number of following strings
			Match	String	One eligible command, note that each command is sent separately instead of in a single string, hence the need for Count

Scoreboard Objective

This is sent to the client when it should create a new scoreboard or remove one.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x3B	Play	Client	Objective name	String	An unique name for the objective
			Mode	Byte	0 to create the scoreboard. 1 to remove the scoreboard. 2 to update the display text.
			Objective value	String	Only if mode is 0 or 2. The text to be displayed for the score.
			Type	String	Only if mode is 0 or 2. "integer" or "hearts"

Update Score

This is sent to the client when it should update a scoreboard item.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x3C	Play	Client	Item Name	String	An unique name to be displayed in the list.
			Update/Remove	Byte	0 to create/update an item. 1 to remove an item.
			Score Name	String	The unique name for the scoreboard to be updated.
			Value	VarInt	The score to be displayed next to the entry. Only sent when Update/Remove does not equal 1.

The final String and Int are only sent if the Update/Remove Byte does not equal 1

Display Scoreboard

This is sent to the client when it should display a scoreboard.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x3D	Play	Client	Position	Byte	The position of the scoreboard. 0 = list, 1 = sidebar, 2 = belowName.
			Score Name	String	The unique name for the scoreboard to be displayed.

Teams

Creates and updates teams.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x3E	Play	Client	Team Name	String	A unique name for the team. (Shared with scoreboard).
			Mode	Byte	If 0 then the team is created. If 1 then the team is removed. If 2 the team team information is updated. If 3 then new players are added to the team. If 4 then players are removed from the team.
			Team Display Name	String	Only if Mode = 0 or 2.
			Team Prefix	String	Only if Mode = 0 or 2. Displayed before the players' name that are part of this team.
			Team Suffix	String	Only if Mode = 0 or 2. Displayed after the players' name that are part of this team.
			Friendly fire	Byte	Only if Mode = 0 or 2; 0 for off, 1 for on, 3 for seeing friendly invisibles
			Name Tag Visibility	String	Only if Mode = 0 or 2. always, hideForOtherTeams, hideForOwnTeam, never.
			Color	Byte	Only if Mode = 0 or 2. Same as Chat colors.
			Player count	VarInt	Only if Mode = 0 or 3 or 4. Number of players in the array
			Players	Array of strings	Only if Mode = 0 or 3 or 4. Players to be added/remove from the team. Max 40 characters so may be uuid's later

Plugin Message

Mods and plugins can use this to send their data. Minecraft itself uses a number of plugin channels. These internal channels are prefixed with MC|.

More documentation on this: http://dinnerbone.com/blog/2012/01/13/minecraft-plugin-channels-messaging/

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x3F	Play	Client	Channel	String	Name of the "channel" used to send the data.
			Data	Byte Array	Any data.

Disconnect

Sent by the server before it disconnects a client. The server assumes that the sender has already closed the connection by the time the packet arrives.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x40	Play	Client	Reason	String	Displayed to the client when the connection terminates. Must be valid JSON.

Server Difficulty

Changes the difficulty setting in the client's option menu

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x41	Play	Client	Difficulty	Unsigned Byte	0:PEACEFUL, 1:EASY, 2:NORMAL, 3: HARD

Combat Event

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x42	Play	Client	Event	VarInt	0 ENTER_COMBAT, 1 END_COMBAT, 2 ENTITY_DEAD
			Duration	VarInt	Only for END_COMBAT
			Entity ID	Int	Only for END_COMBAT
			Player ID	VarInt	Only for ENTITY_DEAD
			Entity ID	Int	Only for ENTITY_DEAD
			Message	String	Only for ENTITY_DEAD

Camera

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x43	Play	Client	Camera ID	VarInt

World Border

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name		Field Type	Notes
0x44	Play	Client	Action		VarInt
			Action	Name
			0 (SET_SIZE)	Radius	Double
			1 (LERP_SIZE)	Old radius	Double
				New radius	Double
				Speed	VarLong
			2 (SET_CENTER)	X	Double
				Z	Double
			3 (INITIALIZE)	X	Double
				Z	Double
				Old radius	Double
				New radius	Double
				Speed	VarLong
				Portal Teleport Boundary	VarInt	Resulting coordinates from a portal teleport are limited to +-value. Usually 29999984.
				Warning time	VarInt
				Warning blocks	VarInt
			4 (SET_WARNING_TIME)	Warning time	VarInt
			5 (SET_WARNING_BLOCKS)	Warning blocks	VarInt

Title

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name		Field Type	Notes
0x45	Play	Client	Action		VarInt
			Action	Name
			0 (TITLE)	Text	Chat
			1 (SUBTITLE)	Text	Chat
			2 (TIMES)	Fade In	Int
				Stay	Int
				Fade Out	Int
			3 (CLEAR)
			4 (RESET)

Set Compression

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x46	Play	Client	Threshold	VarInt	Threshold is the max size of a packet before its compressed

Player List Header/Footer

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x47	Play	Client	Header	Chat
			Footer	Chat

Resource Pack Send

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x48	Play	Client	URL	String
			Hash	String	If it's not a 40 character hexadecimal string, the client will not use it for hash verification and likely waste bandwidth - but it will still treat it as a unique id

Update Entity NBT

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x49	Play	Client	Entity ID	VarInt
			Tag	NBT Tag

Serverbound

Keep Alive

The server will frequently send out a keep-alive, each containing a random ID. The client must respond with the same packet.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x00	Play	Server	Keep Alive ID	VarInt

Chat Message

The default server will check the message to see if it begins with a '/'. If it doesn't, the username of the sender is prepended and sent to all other clients (including the original sender). If it does, the server assumes it to be a command and attempts to process it. A message longer than 100 characters will cause the server to kick the client. This change was initially done by allowing the client to not slice the message up to 119 (the previous limit), without changes to the server. For this reason, the vanilla server kept the code to cut messages at 119, but this isn't a protocol limitation and can be ignored.

For more information, see Chat.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x01	Play	Server	Message	String

Use Entity

This packet is sent from the client to the server when the client attacks or right-clicks another entity (a player, minecart, etc).

A Notchian server only accepts this packet if the entity being attacked/used is visible without obstruction and within a 4-unit radius of the player's position.

Note that middle-click in creative mode is interpreted by the client and sent as a Creative Inventory Action packet instead.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x02	Play	Server	Target	VarInt
			Type	VarInt	0 = INTERACT, 1 = ATTACK, 2 = INTERACT_AT
			Target X	Float	Only if Type == INTERACT_AT
			Target Y	Float	Only if Type == INTERACT_AT
			Target Z	Float	Only if Type == INTERACT_AT

Player

This packet is used to indicate whether the player is on ground (walking/swimming), or airborne (jumping/falling).

When dropping from sufficient height, fall damage is applied when this state goes from False to True. The amount of damage applied is based on the point where it last changed from True to False. Note that there are several movement related packets containing this state.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x03	Play	Server	On Ground	Bool	True if the client is on the ground, False otherwise

Player Position

Updates the players XYZ position on the server. If HeadY - FeetY is less than 0.1 or greater than 1.65, the stance is illegal and the client will be kicked with the message “Illegal Stance”. If the distance between the last known position of the player on the server and the new position set by this packet is greater than 100 units will result in the client being kicked for "You moved too quickly :( (Hacking?)" Also if the fixed-point number of X or Z is set greater than 3.2E7D the client will be kicked for "Illegal position"

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x04	Play	Server	X	Double	Absolute position
			FeetY	Double	Absolute feet position, normally HeadY - 1.62. Used to modify the players bounding box when going up stairs, crouching, etc…
			Z	Double	Absolute position
			On Ground	Bool	True if the client is on the ground, False otherwise

Player Look

The unit circle for yaw

The unit circle of yaw, redrawn

Updates the direction the player is looking in.

Yaw is measured in degrees, and does not follow classical trigonometry rules. The unit circle of yaw on the XZ-plane starts at (0, 1) and turns counterclockwise, with 90 at (-1, 0), 180 at (0,-1) and 270 at (1, 0). Additionally, yaw is not clamped to between 0 and 360 degrees; any number is valid, including negative numbers and numbers greater than 360.

Pitch is measured in degrees, where 0 is looking straight ahead, -90 is looking straight up, and 90 is looking straight down.

The yaw of player (in degrees), standing at point (x0,z0) and looking towards point (x,z) one can be calculated with:

 l = x-x0
 w = z-z0
 c = sqrt( l*l + w*w )
 alpha1 = -arcsin(l/c)/PI*180
 alpha2 =  arccos(w/c)/PI*180
 if alpha2 > 90 then
   yaw = 180 - alpha1
 else
   yaw = alpha1

Pitch is measured in degrees, where 0 is looking straight ahead, -90 is looking straight up, and 90 is looking straight down.

You can get a unit vector from a given yaw/pitch via:

 x = -cos(pitch) * sin(yaw)
 y = -sin(pitch)
 z =  cos(pitch) * cos(yaw)

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x05	Play	Server	Yaw	Float	Absolute rotation on the X Axis, in degrees
			Pitch	Float	Absolute rotation on the Y Axis, in degrees
			On Ground	Bool	True if the client is on the ground, False otherwise

Player Position And Look

A combination of Player Look and Player position.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x06	Play	Server	X	Double	Absolute position
			FeetY	Double	Absolute feet position. Is normally HeadY - 1.62. Used to modify the players bounding box when going up stairs, crouching, etc…
			Z	Double	Absolute position
			Yaw	Float	Absolute rotation on the X Axis, in degrees
			Pitch	Float	Absolute rotation on the Y Axis, in degrees
			On Ground	Bool	True if the client is on the ground, False otherwise

Player Digging

Sent when the player mines a block. A Notchian server only accepts digging packets with coordinates within a 6-unit radius of the player's position.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x07	Play	Server	Status	Byte	The action the player is taking against the block (see below)
			Location	Position	Block position
			Face	Byte	The face being hit (see below)

Status can (currently) be one of six values:

Meaning	Value
Started digging	0
Cancelled digging	1
Finished digging	2
Drop item stack	3
Drop item	4
Shoot arrow / finish eating	5

Notchian clients send a 0 (started digging) when they start digging and a 2 (finished digging) once they think they are finished. If digging is aborted, the client simply send a 1 (Cancel digging).

Status code 4 (drop item) is a special case. In-game, when you use the Drop Item command (keypress 'q'), a dig packet with a status of 4, and all other values set to 0, is sent from client to server. Status code 3 is similar, but drops the entire stack.

Status code 5 (shoot arrow / finish eating) is also a special case. The x, y and z fields are all set to 0 like above, with the exception of the face field, which is set to 255.

The face can be one of six values, representing the face being hit:

Value	0	1	2	3	4	5
Offset	-Y	+Y	-Z	+Z	-X	+X

In 1.7.3, when a player opens a door with left click the server receives Packet 0xE+start digging and opens the door.

Player Block Placement

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x08	Play	Server	Location	Position	Block position
			Direction	Byte	The offset to use for block/item placement (see below)
			Held item	Slot
			Cursor position X	Byte	The position of the crosshair on the block
			Cursor position Y	Byte
			Cursor position Z	Byte

In normal operation (ie placing a block), this packet is sent once, with the values set normally.

This packet has a special case where X, Y, Z, and Direction are all -1. (Note that Y is unsigned so set to 255.) This special packet indicates that the currently held item for the player should have its state updated such as eating food, pulling back bows, using buckets, etc.

In a Notchian Beta client, the block or item ID corresponds to whatever the client is currently holding, and the client sends one of these packets any time a right-click is issued on a surface, so no assumptions can be made about the safety of the ID. However, with the implementation of server-side inventory, a Notchian server seems to ignore the item ID, instead operating on server-side inventory information and holding selection. The client has been observed (1.2.5 and 1.3.2) to send both real item IDs and -1 in a single session.

Special note on using buckets: When using buckets, the Notchian client might send two packets: first a normal and then a special case. The first normal packet is sent when you're looking at a block (e.g. the water you want to scoop up). This normal packet does not appear to do anything with a Notchian server. The second, special case packet appears to perform the action - based on current position/orientation and with a distance check - it appears that buckets can only be used within a radius of 6 units.

Held Item Change

Sent when the player changes the slot selection

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x09	Play	Server	Slot	Short	The slot which the player has selected (0-8)

Animation

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x0A	Play	Server

Entity Action

Sent at least when crouching, leaving a bed, or sprinting. To send action animation to client use 0x28. The client will send this with Action ID = 3 when "Leave Bed" is clicked.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x0B	Play	Server	Entity ID	VarInt	Player ID
			Action ID	Unsigned Byte	The ID of the action, see below.
			Jump Boost	VarInt	Horse jump boost. Ranged from 0 -> 100.

Action ID can be one of the following values:

ID	Action
0	Crouch
1	Uncrouch
2	Leave bed
3	Start sprinting
4	Stop sprinting
5	Jump with horse
6	Open inventory

Steer Vehicle

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x0C	Play	Server	Sideways	Float	Positive to the left of the player
			Forward	Float	Positive forward
			Flags	Unsigned Byte	0x1 Jump, 0x2 Unmount

Close Window

This packet is sent by the client when closing a window.

Note, notchian clients send a close window message with window id 0 to close their inventory even though there is never an Open Window message for inventory.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x0D	Play	Server	Window id	byte	This is the id of the window that was closed. 0 for inventory.

Click Window

This packet is sent by the player when it clicks on a slot in a window.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x0E	Play	Server	Window ID	Byte	The id of the window which was clicked. 0 for player inventory.
			Slot	Short	The clicked slot. See below.
			Button	Byte	The button used in the click. See below.
			Action number	Short	A unique number for the action, used for transaction handling (See the Transaction packet).
			Mode	Byte	Inventory operation mode. See below.
			Clicked item	Slot

See inventory windows for further information about how slots are indexed.

When right-clicking on a stack of items, half the stack will be picked up and half left in the slot. If the stack is an odd number, the half left in the slot will be smaller of the amounts.

The Action number is actually a counter, starting at 1. This number is used by the server as a transaction ID to send back a Transaction packet.

The distinct type of click performed by the client is determined by the combination of the "Mode" and "Button" fields.

Mode	Button	Slot	Trigger
0	0	Normal	Left mouse click
	1	Normal	Right mouse click
1	0	Normal	Shift + left mouse click
	1	Normal	Shift + right mouse click (Identical behavior)
2	0	Normal	Number key 1
	1	Normal	Number key 2
	2	Normal	Number key 3
	...	...	...
	8	Normal	Number key 9
3	2	Normal	Middle click
4	0	Normal	Drop key (Q)
	1	Normal	Ctrl + Drop key (Ctrl-Q)
	0	-999	Left click outside inventory holding nothing (No-op)
	1	-999	Right click outside inventory holding nothing (No-op)
5	0	-999	Starting left mouse drag (Or middle mouse)
	4	-999	Starting right mouse drag
	1	Normal	Add slot for left-mouse drag
	5	Normal	Add slot for right-mouse drag
	2	-999	Ending left mouse drag
	6	-999	Ending right mouse drag
6	0	Normal	Double click

Starting from version 1.5, "painting mode" is available for use in inventory windows. It is done by picking up stack of something (more than 1 items), then holding mouse button (left, right or middle) and dragging holded stack over empty (or same type in case of right button ) slots. In that case client sends the following to server after mouse button release (omitting first pickup packet which is sent as usual):

1. packet with mode 5, slot -999 , button (0 for left | 4 for right);
2. packet for every slot painted on, mode is still 5, button (1 | 5);
3. packet with mode 5, slot -999, button (2 | 6);

If any of the painting packets other than the "progress" ones are sent out of order (for example, a start, some slots, then another start; or a left-click in the middle) the painting status will be reset.

Confirm Transaction

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x0F	Play	Server	Window ID	Byte	The id of the window that the action occurred in.
			Action number	Short	Every action that is to be accepted has a unique number. This field corresponds to that number.
			Accepted	Bool	Whether the action was accepted.

Creative Inventory Action

While the user is in the standard inventory (i.e., not a crafting bench) on a creative-mode server then the server will send this packet:

• If an item is dropped into the quick bar
• If an item is picked up from the quick bar (item id is -1)

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x10	Play	Server	Slot	Short	Inventory slot
			Clicked item	Slot

Enchant Item

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x11	Play	Server	Window ID	Byte	The ID sent by Open Window
			Enchantment	Byte	The position of the enchantment on the enchantment table window, starting with 0 as the topmost one.

Update Sign

This message is sent from the client to the server when the "Done" button is pushed after placing a sign.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x12	Play	Server	Location	Position	Block Coordinates
			Line 1	Chat	First line of text in the sign
			Line 2	Chat	Second line of text in the sign
			Line 3	Chat	Third line of text in the sign
			Line 4	Chat	Fourth line of text in the sign

Player Abilities

The latter 2 bytes are used to indicate the walking and flying speeds respectively, while the first byte is used to determine the value of 4 booleans.

The flags are whether damage is disabled (god mode, 8, bit 3), whether the player can fly (4, bit 2), whether the player is flying (2, bit 1), and whether the player is in creative mode (1, bit 0).

To get the values of these booleans, simply AND (&) the byte with 1,2,4 and 8 respectively, to get the 0 or 1 bitwise value. To set them OR (|) them with their repspective masks. The vanilla client sends this packet when the player starts/stops flying with the second parameter changed accordingly. All other parameters are ignored by the vanilla server.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x13	Play	Server	Flags	Byte
			Flying speed	Float	previous integer value divided by 250
			Walking speed	Float	previous integer value divided by 250

Tab-Complete

Sent when the user presses [tab] while writing text. The payload contains all text behind the cursor.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x14	Play	Server	Text	String
			Has Position	Boolean
			Looked at block	Position	The position of the block being looked at. Only sent if the previous field is true

Client Settings

Sent when the player connects, or when settings are changed.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x15	Play	Server	Locale	String	en_GB
			View distance	Byte	Client-side render distance(chunks)
			Chat flags	Byte	Chat settings. See notes below.
			Chat colours	Bool	"Colours" multiplayer setting
			Displayed skin parts	Unsigned Byte	Unknown

Chat flags has several values packed into one byte.

Chat Enabled: Bits 0-1. 00: Enabled. 01: Commands only. 10: Hidden.

Client Status

Sent when the client is ready to complete login and when the client is ready to respawn after death.

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x16	Play	Server	Action ID	Unsigned Byte	See below

Action ID values:

Action ID	Name
0	Perform respawn
1	Request stats
2	Open inventory achievement

Plugin Message

Mods and plugins can use this to send their data. Minecraft itself uses a number of plugin channels. These internal channels are prefixed with MC|.

More documentation on this: http://dinnerbone.com/blog/2012/01/13/minecraft-plugin-channels-messaging/

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x17	Play	Server	Channel	String	Name of the "channel" used to send the data.
			Data	Byte Array	Any data.

Spectate

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x18	Play	Server	Target Player	UUID

Resource Pack Status

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x19	Play	Server	Hash	String
			Result	VarInt	Successfully loaded: 0, Declined: 1, Failed download: 2, Accepted: 3

Status

The status ping works as follows.

   C->S : Handshake State=1
   C->S : Request
   S->C : Response
   C->S : Ping
   S->C : Ping

Clientbound

Response

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x00	Status	Client	JSON Response	String	https://gist.github.com/thinkofdeath/6927216

Ping

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x01	Status	Client	Time	Long	Should be the same as sent by the client

Serverbound

Request

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x00	Status	Server

Ping

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x01	Status	Server	Time	Long

Login

The login process is as follows:

   C->S : Handshake State=2
   C->S : Login Start
   S->C : Encryption Key Request
   (Client Auth)
   C->S : Encryption Key Response
   (Server Auth, Both enable encryption)
   S->C : Login Success

For unauthenticated and* localhost connections there is no encryption. In that case Login Start is directly followed by Login Success.

* It could be that only one of the two conditions is enough for an unencrypted connection.

See Protocol Encryption for details.

Clientbound

Disconnect

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x00	Login	Client	JSON Data	String

Encryption Request

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x01	Login	Client	Server ID	String	appears to be empty as of 1.7.x
			Length	VarInt	length of public key
			Public Key	Byte array
			Length	VarInt	length of verify token
			Verify Token	Byte array

See Protocol Encryption for details.

Login Success

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x02	Login	Client	UUID	String
			Username	String

Set Compression

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x03	Login	Client	Threshold	VarInt	Threshold is the max size of a packet before its compressed

Serverbound

Login Start

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x00	Login	Server	Name	String

Encryption Response

Packet ID	Category	Bound To	Field Name	Field Type	Notes
0x01	Login	Server	Length	VarInt	length of shared secret
			Shared Secret	Byte array
			Length	VarInt	length of verify token
			Verify Token	Byte array

See Protocol Encryption for details.

See Also

• Data Types
• Protocol History
• Units of Measurement