Protocol

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Heads up!

This article is about the protocol for the latest stable release of Minecraft Java Edition (1.20.1, protocol 763). For the Java Edition pre-releases, see Pre-release protocol. For the incomplete Bedrock Edition docs, see Bedrock Protocol. For the old Pocket Edition, see Pocket Edition Protocol Documentation.

This page presents a dissection of the current Minecraft protocol.

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

Note: While you may use the contents of this page without restriction to create servers, clients, bots, etc; substantial reproductions of this page must be attributed IAW CC BY-SA 4.0.

The changes between versions may be viewed at Protocol History.

Contents

Definitions

The Minecraft server accepts connections from TCP clients and communicates with them using packets. A packet is a sequence of bytes sent over the TCP connection. The meaning of a packet depends both on its packet ID and the current state of the connection. The initial state of each connection is Handshaking, and state is switched using the packets Handshake and Login Success.

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.
ID or X size of VarInt + (size of X or 0) See #ID or X below Either a registry ID or an inline data definition of type X.
ID Set Varies See #ID Set below Set of registry IDs specified either inline or as a reference to a tag.
Sound Event Varies See #Sound Event below Parameters for a sound event.

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;
    }
}

Warning.png 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.

Warning.png 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.

Registry references

ID or X

Represents a data record of type X, either inline, or by reference to a registry implied by context.

Field Name Field Type Meaning
ID VarInt 0 if value of type X is given inline; otherwise registry ID + 1.
Value Optional X Only present if ID is 0.

ID Set

Represents a set of IDs in a certain registry (implied by context), either directly (enumerated IDs) or indirectly (tag name).

Field Name Field Type Meaning
Type VarInt Value used to determine the data that follows. It can be either:
  • 0 - Represents a named set of IDs defined by a tag.
  • Anything else - Represents an ad-hoc set of IDs enumerated inline.
Tag Name Optional Identifier The registry tag defining the ID set. Only present if Type is 0.
IDs Optional Array of VarInt An array of registry IDs. Only present if Type is not 0.
The size of the array is equal to Type - 1.

Registry data

These types are commonly used in conjuction with ID or X to specify custom data inline.

Sound Event

Describes a sound that can be played.

Name Type Description
Sound Name Identifier
Has Fixed Range Boolean Whether this sound has a fixed range, as opposed to a variable volume based on distance.
Fixed Range Optional Float The maximum range of the sound. Only present if Has Fixed Range is true.


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 etc. See the Minecraft Wiki article for a full list.
EID An EID — or Entity ID — is a 4-byte sequence used to identify a specific entity. An entity's EID is unique on the entire server.
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.
Meter The meter is Minecraft's base unit of length, equal to the length of a vertex of a solid block. The term “block” may be used to mean “meter” or “cubic meter”.
Global palette A table/dictionary/palette mapping nonnegative integers to block states. Block state IDs are created in a linear fashion based off of order of assignment. One block state ID allocated for each unique block state for a block; if a block has multiple properties then the number of allocated states is the product of the number of values for each property. A current list of properties and state ID ranges is found on burger.

Alternatively, the vanilla server now includes an option to export the current block state ID mapping, by running java -cp minecraft_server.jar net.minecraft.data.Main --reports. See Data Generators for more information.

Notchian The official implementation of vanilla Minecraft as developed and released by Mojang.
Sequence The action number counter for local block changes, incremented by one when clicking a block with a hand, right clicking an item, or starting or finishing digging a block. Counter handles latency to avoid applying outdated block changes to the local world. Also is used to revert ghost blocks created when placing blocks, using buckets, or breaking blocks.

Packet format

Packets cannot be larger than 221 − 1 or 2097151 bytes (the maximum that can be sent in a 3-byte VarInt). For compressed packets, this applies to both the compressed length and uncompressed lengths.

Without compression

Field Name Field Type Notes
Length VarInt Length of Packet ID + Data
Packet ID VarInt
Data Byte Array Depends on the connection state and packet ID, see the sections below

With compression

Once a Set Compression packet (with a non-negative threshold) is sent, zlib compression is enabled for all following packets. The format of a packet changes slightly to include the size of the uncompressed packet.

Compressed? Field Name Field Type Notes
No Packet Length VarInt Length of (Data Length) + Compressed length of (Packet ID + Data)
No Data Length VarInt Length of uncompressed (Packet ID + Data) or 0
Yes Packet ID VarInt zlib compressed packet ID (see the sections below)
Data Byte Array zlib compressed packet data (see the sections below)

If the size of the buffer containing the packet data and ID (as a VarInt) is smaller than the threshold specified in the packet Set Compression. It will be sent as uncompressed. This is done by setting the data length as 0. (Comparable to sending a non-compressed format with an extra 0 between the length, and packet data).

If it's larger than the threshold, then it follows the regular compressed protocol format.

Compression can be disabled by sending the packet Set Compression with a negative Threshold, or not sending the Set Compression packet at all.

Handshaking

Clientbound

There are no clientbound packets in the Handshaking state, since the protocol immediately switches to a different state after the client sends the first packet.

Serverbound

Handshake

This causes the server to switch into the target state.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x00 Handshaking Server Protocol Version VarInt See protocol version numbers (currently 763 in Minecraft 1.20.1).
Server Address String (255) Hostname or IP, e.g. localhost or 127.0.0.1, that was used to connect. The Notchian server does not use this information. Note that SRV records are a simple redirect, e.g. if _minecraft._tcp.example.com points to mc.example.org, users connecting to example.com will provide example.org as server address in addition to connecting to it.
Server Port Unsigned Short Default is 25565. The Notchian server does not use this information.
Next State VarInt Enum 1 for Status, 2 for Login.

Legacy Server List Ping

Warning.png This packet uses a nonstandard format. It is never length-prefixed, and the packet ID is an Unsigned Byte instead of a VarInt.

While not technically part of the current protocol, legacy clients may send this packet to initiate Server List Ping, and modern servers should handle it correctly. The format of this packet is a remnant of the pre-Netty age, before the switch to Netty in 1.7 brought the standard format that is recognized now. This packet merely exists to inform legacy clients that they can't join our modern server.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0xFE Handshaking Server Payload Unsigned Byte always 1 (0x01).

See Server List Ping#1.6 for the details of the protocol that follows this packet.

Status

Main article: Server List Ping

Clientbound

Status Response

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x00 Status Client
JSON Response String (32767) See Server List Ping#Response; as with all strings this is prefixed by its length as a VarInt.

Ping Response

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

Serverbound

Status Request

The status can only be requested once immediately after the handshake, before any ping. The server won't respond otherwise.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x00 Status Server no fields

Ping Request

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x01 Status Server Payload Long May be any number. Notchian clients use a system-dependent time value which is counted in milliseconds.

Login

The login process is as follows:

  1. C→S: Handshake with Next State set to 2 (login)
  2. C→S: Login Start
  3. S→C: Encryption Request
  4. Client auth
  5. C→S: Encryption Response
  6. Server auth, both enable encryption
  7. S→C: Set Compression (optional)
  8. S→C: Login Success

Set Compression, if present, must be sent before Login Success. Note that anything sent after Set Compression must use the Post Compression packet format.

For unauthenticated ("cracked"/offline-mode) and integrated servers (either of the two conditions is enough for an unencrypted connection) there is no encryption. In that case Login Start is directly followed by Login Success. The Notchian server uses UUID v3 for offline player UUIDs, with the namespace “OfflinePlayer” and the value as the player’s username. For example, Notch’s offline UUID would be derived from the string “OfflinePlayer:Notch”. This is not a requirement however, the UUID may be anything.

See Protocol Encryption for details.

Clientbound

Disconnect (login)

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x00 Login Client Reason Chat The reason why the player was disconnected.

Encryption Request

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x01 Login Client Server ID String (20) Appears to be empty.
Public Key Length VarInt Length of Public Key
Public Key Byte Array The server's public key, in bytes.
Verify Token Length VarInt Length of Verify Token. Always 4 for Notchian servers.
Verify Token Byte Array A sequence of random bytes generated by the server.

See Protocol Encryption for details.

Login Success

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x02 Login Client UUID UUID
Username String (16)
Number Of Properties VarInt Number of elements in the following array.
Property Name Array String (32767)
Value String (32767)
Is Signed Boolean
Signature Optional String (32767) Only if Is Signed is true.

This packet switches the connection state to play.

Warning.png The (notchian) server might take a bit to fully transition to the Play state, so it's recommended to wait for the Login (play) packet from the server.

The notchian client doesn't send any packets until the Login (play) packet.

Set Compression

Enables compression. If compression is enabled, all following packets are encoded in the compressed packet format. Negative values will disable compression, meaning the packet format should remain in the uncompressed packet format. However, this packet is entirely optional, and if not sent, compression will also not be enabled (the notchian server does not send the packet when compression is disabled).

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x03 Login Client Threshold VarInt Maximum size of a packet before it is compressed.

Login Plugin Request

Used to implement a custom handshaking flow together with Login Plugin Response.

Unlike plugin messages in "play" mode, these messages follow a lock-step request/response scheme, where the client is expected to respond to a request indicating whether it understood. The notchian client always responds that it hasn't understood, and sends an empty payload.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x04 Login Client Message ID VarInt Generated by the server - should be unique to the connection.
Channel Identifier Name of the plugin channel used to send the data.
Data Byte Array (1048576) Any data, depending on the channel. The length of this array must be inferred from the packet length.

In Notchian client, the maximum data length is 1048576 bytes.

Serverbound

Login Start

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x00 Login Server Name String (16) Player's Username.
Has Player UUID Boolean Whether or not the next field should be sent.
Player UUID Optional UUID The UUID of the player logging in. Only sent if Has Player UUID is true.

Encryption Response

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x01 Login Server Shared Secret Length VarInt Length of Shared Secret.
Shared Secret Byte Array Shared Secret value, encrypted with the server's public key.
Verify Token Length VarInt Length of Verify Token.
Verify Token Byte Array Verify Token value, encrypted with the same public key as the shared secret.

See Protocol Encryption for details. See Mojang_API#Player_Certificates for an API to get the message signature.

Login Plugin Response

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x02 Login Server Message ID VarInt Should match ID from server.
Successful Boolean true if the client understood the request, false otherwise. When false, no payload follows.
Data Optional Byte Array (1048576) Any data, depending on the channel. The length of this array must be inferred from the packet length.

In Notchian server, the maximum data length is 1048576 bytes.

Play

Clientbound

Bundle Delimiter

The delimeter for a bundle of packets. When received, the client should store every subsequent packet it receives, and wait until another delimiter is received. Once that happens, the client is guaranteed to process every packet in the bundle on the same tick.

The Notchian client doesn't allow more than 4096 packets in the same bundle.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x00 Play Client no fields

Spawn Entity

Sent by the server when a vehicle or other non-living entity is created.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x01 Play Client Entity ID VarInt A unique integer ID mostly used in the protocol to identify the entity.
Entity UUID UUID A unique identifier that is mostly used in persistence and places where the uniqueness matters more.
Type VarInt The type of the entity (see "type" field of the list of Mob types).
X Double
Y Double
Z Double
Pitch Angle To get the real pitch, you must divide this by (256.0F / 360.0F)
Yaw Angle To get the real yaw, you must divide this by (256.0F / 360.0F)
Head Yaw Angle Only used by living entities, where the head of the entity may differ from the general body rotation.
Data VarInt Meaning dependent on the value of the Type field, see Object Data for details.
Velocity X Short Same units as Set Entity Velocity.
Velocity Y Short
Velocity Z Short

Spawn Experience Orb

Spawns one or more experience orbs.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x02 Play Client Entity ID VarInt
X Double
Y Double
Z Double
Count Short The amount of experience this orb will reward once collected.

Spawn Player

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

This packet must be sent after the Player Info Update packet that adds the player data for the client to use when spawning a player. If the Player Info for the player spawned by this packet is not present when this packet arrives, Notchian clients will not spawn the player entity. The Player Info packet includes skin/cape data.

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

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x03 Play Client Entity ID VarInt A unique integer ID mostly used in the protocol to identify the player.
Player UUID UUID See below for notes on offline mode and NPCs.
X Double
Y Double
Z Double
Yaw Angle
Pitch Angle

When in online mode, the UUIDs must be valid and have valid skin blobs. In offline mode, UUID v3 is used with the String OfflinePlayer:<player name>, encoded in UTF-8 (and case-sensitive). The Notchian server uses UUID.nameUUIDFromBytes, implemented by OpenJDK here.

For NPCs UUID v2 should be used. Note: 

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

In an example UUID, xxxxxxxx-xxxx-Yxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx, the UUID version is specified by Y. So, for UUID v3, Y will always be 3, and for UUID v2, Y will always be 2.

Entity Animation

Sent whenever an entity should change animation.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x04 Play Client Entity ID VarInt Player ID.
Animation Unsigned Byte Animation ID (see below).

Animation can be one of the following values:

ID Animation
0 Swing main arm
1 Take damage
2 Leave bed
3 Swing offhand
4 Critical effect
5 Magic critical effect

Award Statistics

Sent as a response to Client Command (id 1). Will only send the changed values if previously requested.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x05 Play Client Count VarInt Number of elements in the following array.
Statistic Category ID Array VarInt See below.
Statistic ID VarInt See below.
Value VarInt The amount to set it to.

Categories (these are namespaced, but with : replaced with .):

Name ID Registry
minecraft.mined 0 Blocks
minecraft.crafted 1 Items
minecraft.used 2 Items
minecraft.broken 3 Items
minecraft.picked_up 4 Items
minecraft.dropped 5 Items
minecraft.killed 6 Entities
minecraft.killed_by 7 Entities
minecraft.custom 8 Custom

Blocks, Items, and Entities use block (not block state), item, and entity ids.

Custom has the following (unit only matters for clients):

Name ID Unit
minecraft.leave_game 0 None
minecraft.play_one_minute 1 Time
minecraft.time_since_death 2 Time
minecraft.time_since_rest 3 Time
minecraft.sneak_time 4 Time
minecraft.walk_one_cm 5 Distance
minecraft.crouch_one_cm 6 Distance
minecraft.sprint_one_cm 7 Distance
minecraft.walk_on_water_one_cm 8 Distance
minecraft.fall_one_cm 9 Distance
minecraft.climb_one_cm 10 Distance
minecraft.fly_one_cm 11 Distance
minecraft.walk_under_water_one_cm 12 Distance
minecraft.minecart_one_cm 13 Distance
minecraft.boat_one_cm 14 Distance
minecraft.pig_one_cm 15 Distance
minecraft.horse_one_cm 16 Distance
minecraft.aviate_one_cm 17 Distance
minecraft.swim_one_cm 18 Distance
minecraft.strider_one_cm 19 Distance
minecraft.jump 20 None
minecraft.drop 21 None
minecraft.damage_dealt 22 Damage
minecraft.damage_dealt_absorbed 23 Damage
minecraft.damage_dealt_resisted 24 Damage
minecraft.damage_taken 25 Damage
minecraft.damage_blocked_by_shield 26 Damage
minecraft.damage_absorbed 27 Damage
minecraft.damage_resisted 28 Damage
minecraft.deaths 29 None
minecraft.mob_kills 30 None
minecraft.animals_bred 31 None
minecraft.player_kills 32 None
minecraft.fish_caught 33 None
minecraft.talked_to_villager 34 None
minecraft.traded_with_villager 35 None
minecraft.eat_cake_slice 36 None
minecraft.fill_cauldron 37 None
minecraft.use_cauldron 38 None
minecraft.clean_armor 39 None
minecraft.clean_banner 40 None
minecraft.clean_shulker_box 41 None
minecraft.interact_with_brewingstand 42 None
minecraft.interact_with_beacon 43 None
minecraft.inspect_dropper 44 None
minecraft.inspect_hopper 45 None
minecraft.inspect_dispenser 46 None
minecraft.play_noteblock 47 None
minecraft.tune_noteblock 48 None
minecraft.pot_flower 49 None
minecraft.trigger_trapped_chest 50 None
minecraft.open_enderchest 51 None
minecraft.enchant_item 52 None
minecraft.play_record 53 None
minecraft.interact_with_furnace 54 None
minecraft.interact_with_crafting_table 55 None
minecraft.open_chest 56 None
minecraft.sleep_in_bed 57 None
minecraft.open_shulker_box 58 None
minecraft.open_barrel 59 None
minecraft.interact_with_blast_furnace 60 None
minecraft.interact_with_smoker 61 None
minecraft.interact_with_lectern 62 None
minecraft.interact_with_campfire 63 None
minecraft.interact_with_cartography_table 64 None
minecraft.interact_with_loom 65 None
minecraft.interact_with_stonecutter 66 None
minecraft.bell_ring 67 None
minecraft.raid_trigger 68 None
minecraft.raid_win 69 None
minecraft.interact_with_anvil 70 None
minecraft.interact_with_grindstone 71 None
minecraft.target_hit 72 None
minecraft.interact_with_smithing_table 73 None

Units:

  • None: just a normal number (formatted with 0 decimal places)
  • Damage: value is 10 times the normal amount
  • Distance: a distance in centimeters (hundredths of blocks)
  • Time: a time span in ticks

Acknowledge Block Change

Acknowledges a user-initiated block change. After receiving this packet, the client will display the block state sent by the server instead of the one predicted by the client.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x06 Play Client Sequence ID VarInt Represents the sequence to acknowledge, this is used for properly syncing block changes to the client after interactions.

Set Block Destroy Stage

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

Block break animations can still be applied on air; the animation will remain visible although there is no block being broken. However, if this is applied to a transparent block, odd graphical effects may happen, including water losing its transparency. (An effect similar to this can be seen in normal gameplay when breaking ice blocks)

If you need to display several break animations at the same time you have to give each of them a unique Entity ID. The entity ID does not need to correspond to an actual entity on the client. It is valid to use a randomly generated number.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x07 Play Client Entity ID VarInt The ID of the entity breaking the block.
Location Position Block Position.
Destroy Stage Byte 0–9 to set it, any other value to remove it.

Block Entity Data

Sets the block entity associated with the block at the given location.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x08 Play Client Location Position
Type VarInt The type of the block entity
NBT Data NBT Tag Data to set. May be a TAG_END (0), in which case the block entity at the given location is removed (though this is not required since the client will remove the block entity automatically on chunk unload or block removal).

Block Action

This packet is used for a number of actions and animations performed by blocks, usually non-persistent. The client ignores the provided block type and instead uses the block state in their world.

See Block Actions for a list of values.

Warning.png This packet uses a block ID from the minecraft:block registry, not a block state.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x09 Play Client Location Position Block coordinates.
Action ID (Byte 1) Unsigned Byte Varies depending on block — see Block Actions.
Action Parameter (Byte 2) Unsigned Byte Varies depending on block — see Block Actions.
Block Type VarInt The block type ID for the block. This value is unused by the Notchian client, as it will infer the type of block based on the given position.

Block Update

Fired whenever a block is changed within the render distance.

Warning.png Changing a block in a chunk that is not loaded is not a stable action. The Notchian client currently uses a shared empty chunk which is modified for all block changes in unloaded chunks; while in 1.9 this chunk never renders in older versions the changed block will appear in all copies of the empty chunk. Servers should avoid sending block changes in unloaded chunks and clients should ignore such packets.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x0A Play Client Location Position Block Coordinates.
Block ID VarInt The new block state ID for the block as given in the global palette. See that section for more information.

Boss Bar

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x0B Play Client UUID UUID Unique ID for this bar.
Action VarInt Enum Determines the layout of the remaining packet.
Action Field Name
0: add Title Chat
Health Float From 0 to 1. Values greater than 1 do not crash a Notchian client, and start rendering part of a second health bar at around 1.5.
Color VarInt Enum Color ID (see below).
Division VarInt Enum Type of division (see below).
Flags Unsigned Byte Bit mask. 0x1: should darken sky, 0x2: is dragon bar (used to play end music), 0x04: create fog (previously was also controlled by 0x02).
1: remove no fields no fields Removes this boss bar.
2: update health Health Float as above
3: update title Title Chat
4: update style Color VarInt Enum Color ID (see below).
Dividers VarInt Enum as above
5: update flags Flags Unsigned Byte as above
ID Color
0 Pink
1 Blue
2 Red
3 Green
4 Yellow
5 Purple
6 White
ID Type of division
0 No division
1 6 notches
2 10 notches
3 12 notches
4 20 notches

Change Difficulty

Changes the difficulty setting in the client's option menu

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x0C Play Client Difficulty Unsigned Byte 0: peaceful, 1: easy, 2: normal, 3: hard.
Difficulty locked? Boolean

Chunk Biomes

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x0D Play Client
Number of chunks VarInt Number of elements in the following array
Chunk biome data Chunk X Array Int Chunk coordinate (block coordinate divided by 16, rounded down)
Chunk Z Int Chunk coordinate (block coordinate divided by 16, rounded down)
Size VarInt Size of Data in bytes
Data Byte array Chunk data structure, with sections containing only the Biomes field

Clear Titles

Clear the client's current title information, with the option to also reset it.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x0E Play Client Reset Boolean

Command Suggestions Response

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. The client sorts these alphabetically before listing them.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x0F Play Client
ID VarInt Transaction ID.
Start VarInt Start of the text to replace.
Length VarInt Length of the text to replace.
Count VarInt Number of elements in the following array.
Matches Match Array String (32767) One eligible value to insert, note that each command is sent separately instead of in a single string, hence the need for Count. Note that for instance this doesn't include a leading / on commands.
Has tooltip Boolean True if the following is present.
Tooltip Optional Chat Tooltip to display; only present if previous boolean is true.

Commands

Lists all of the commands on the server, and how they are parsed.

This is a directed graph, with one root node. Each redirect or child node must refer only to nodes that have already been declared.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x10 Play Client Count VarInt Number of elements in the following array.
Nodes Array of Node An array of nodes.
Root index VarInt Index of the root node in the previous array.

For more information on this packet, see the Command Data article.

Close Container

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. The notchian client disregards the provided window ID and closes any active window.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x11 Play Client Window ID Unsigned Byte This is the ID of the window that was closed. 0 for inventory.

Set Container Content

The inventory slots

Sent by the server when items in multiple slots (in a window) are added/removed. This includes the main inventory, equipped armour and crafting slots. This packet with Window ID set to "0" is sent during the player joining sequence to initialise the player's inventory.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x12 Play Client Window ID Unsigned Byte The ID of window which items are being sent for. 0 for player inventory.
State ID VarInt The last received State ID from either a Set Container Slot or a Set Container Content packet
Count VarInt Number of elements in the following array.
Slot Data Array of Slot
Carried Item Slot Item held by player.

See inventory windows for further information about how slots are indexed. Use Open Screen to open the container on the client.

Set Container Property

This packet is used to inform the client that part of a GUI window should be updated.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x13 Play Client Window ID Unsigned Byte
Property Short The property to be updated, see below.
Value Short The new value for the property, see below.

The meaning of the Property field depends on the type of the window. The following table shows the known combinations of window type and property, and how the value is to be interpreted.

Window type Property Value
Furnace 0: Fire icon (fuel left) counting from fuel burn time down to 0 (in-game ticks)
1: Maximum fuel burn time fuel burn time or 0 (in-game ticks)
2: Progress arrow counting from 0 to maximum progress (in-game ticks)
3: Maximum progress always 200 on the notchian server
Enchantment Table 0: Level requirement for top enchantment slot The enchantment's xp level requirement
1: Level requirement for middle enchantment slot
2: Level requirement for bottom enchantment slot
3: The enchantment seed Used for drawing the enchantment names (in SGA) clientside. The same seed is used to calculate enchantments, but some of the data isn't sent to the client to prevent easily guessing the entire list (the seed value here is the regular seed bitwise and 0xFFFFFFF0).
4: Enchantment ID shown on mouse hover over top enchantment slot The enchantment id (set to -1 to hide it), see below for values
5: Enchantment ID shown on mouse hover over middle enchantment slot
6: Enchantment ID shown on mouse hover over bottom enchantment slot
7: Enchantment level shown on mouse hover over the top slot The enchantment level (1 = I, 2 = II, 6 = VI, etc.), or -1 if no enchant
8: Enchantment level shown on mouse hover over the middle slot
9: Enchantment level shown on mouse hover over the bottom slot
Beacon 0: Power level 0-4, controls what effect buttons are enabled
1: First potion effect Potion effect ID for the first effect, or -1 if no effect
2: Second potion effect Potion effect ID for the second effect, or -1 if no effect
Anvil 0: Repair cost The repair's cost in xp levels
Brewing Stand 0: Brew time 0 – 400, with 400 making the arrow empty, and 0 making the arrow full
1: Fuel time 0 - 20, with 0 making the arrow empty, and 20 making the arrow full
Stonecutter 0: Selected recipe The index of the selected recipe. -1 means none is selected.
Loom 0: Selected pattern The index of the selected pattern. 0 means none is selected, 0 is also the internal id of the "base" pattern.
Lectern 0: Page number The current page number, starting from 0.

For an enchanting table, the following numerical IDs are used:

Numerical ID Enchantment ID Enchantment Name
0 minecraft:protection Protection
1 minecraft:fire_protection Fire Protection
2 minecraft:feather_falling Feather Falling
3 minecraft:blast_protection Blast Protection
4 minecraft:projectile_protection Projectile Protection
5 minecraft:respiration Respiration
6 minecraft:aqua_affinity Aqua Affinity
7 minecraft:thorns Thorns
8 minecraft:depth_strider Depth Strider
9 minecraft:frost_walker Frost Walker
10 minecraft:binding_curse Curse of Binding
11 minecraft:soul_speed Soul Speed
12 minecraft:sharpness Sharpness
13 minecraft:smite Smite
14 minecraft:bane_of_arthropods Bane of Arthropods
15 minecraft:knockback Knockback
16 minecraft:fire_aspect Fire Aspect
17 minecraft:looting Looting
18 minecraft:sweeping Sweeping Edge
19 minecraft:efficiency Efficiency
20 minecraft:silk_touch Silk Touch
21 minecraft:unbreaking Unbreaking
22 minecraft:fortune Fortune
23 minecraft:power Power
24 minecraft:punch Punch
25 minecraft:flame Flame
26 minecraft:infinity Infinity
27 minecraft:luck_of_the_sea Luck of the Sea
28 minecraft:lure Lure
29 minecraft:loyalty Loyalty
30 minecraft:impaling Impaling
31 minecraft:riptide Riptide
32 minecraft:channeling Channeling
33 minecraft:multishot Multishot
34 minecraft:quick_charge Quick Charge
35 minecraft:piercing Piercing
36 minecraft:mending Mending
37 minecraft:vanishing_curse Curse of Vanishing

Set Container Slot

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

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x14 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).
State ID VarInt The last received State ID from either a Set Container Slot or a Set Container Content packet
Slot Short The slot that should be updated.
Slot Data Slot

To set the cursor (the item currently dragged with the mouse), use -1 as Window ID and as Slot.

This packet can only be used to edit the hotbar and offhand of the player's inventory if window ID is set to 0 (slots 36 through 45) if the player is in creative, with their inventory open, and not in their survival inventory tab. Otherwise, when window ID is 0, it can edit any slot in the player's inventory. If the window ID is set to -2, then any slot in the inventory can be used but no add item animation will be played.

Set Cooldown

Applies a cooldown period to all items with the given type. Used by the Notchian server with enderpearls. This packet should be sent when the cooldown starts and also when the cooldown ends (to compensate for lag), although the client will end the cooldown automatically. Can be applied to any item, note that interactions still get sent to the server with the item but the client does not play the animation nor attempt to predict results (i.e block placing).

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x15 Play Client Item ID VarInt Numeric ID of the item to apply a cooldown to.
Cooldown Ticks VarInt Number of ticks to apply a cooldown for, or 0 to clear the cooldown.

Chat Suggestions

Unused by the Notchian server. Likely provided for custom servers to send chat message completions to clients.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x16 Play Client Action VarInt Enum 0: Add, 1: Remove, 2: Set
Count VarInt Number of elements in the following array.
Entries Array of String

Plugin Message

Main article: Plugin channels

Mods and plugins can use this to send their data. Minecraft itself uses several plugin channels. These internal channels are in the minecraft namespace.

More information on how it works on Dinnerbone's blog. More documentation about internal and popular registered channels are here.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x17 Play Client Channel Identifier Name of the plugin channel used to send the data.
Data Byte Array (1048576) Any data. The length of this array must be inferred from the packet length.

In Notchian client, the maximum data length is 1048576 bytes.

Damage Event

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x18 Play Client
Entity ID VarInt The ID of the entity taking damage
Source Type ID VarInt The ID of the type of damage taken
Source Cause ID VarInt The ID + 1 of the entity responsible for the damage, if present. If not present, the value is 0
Source Direct ID VarInt The ID + 1 of the entity that directly dealt the damage, if present. If not present, the value is 0. If this field is present:
  • and damage was dealt indirectly, such as by the use of a projectile, this field will contain the ID of such projectile;
  • and damage was dealt dirctly, such as by manually attacking, this field will contain the same value as Source Cause ID.
Has Source Position Boolean Indicates the presence of the three following fields.

The Notchian server sends the Source Position when the damage was dealt by the /damage command and a position was specified

Source Position X Optional Double Only present if Has Source Position is true
Source Position Y Optional Double Only present if Has Source Position is true
Source Position Z Optional Double Only present if Has Source Position is true

Delete Message

Removes a message from the client's chat. This only works for messages with signatures, system messages cannot be deleted with this packet.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x19 Play Client Signature Length VarInt Length of Signature.
Signature Byte Array Bytes of the signature.

Disconnect (play)

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

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x1A Play Client Reason Chat Displayed to the client when the connection terminates.

Disguised Chat Message

Used to send system chat messages to the client.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x1B Play Client Message Chat
Chat Type VarInt The chat message type.
Chat Type Name Chat The name associated with the chat type. Usually the message sender's display name.
Has Target Name Boolean True if target name is present.
Target Name Chat The target name associated with the chat type. Usually the message target's display name. Only present if previous boolean is true.

Entity Event

Entity statuses generally trigger an animation for an entity. The available statuses vary by the entity's type (and are available to subclasses of that type as well).

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x1C Play Client Entity ID Int
Entity Status Byte Enum See Entity statuses for a list of which statuses are valid for each type of entity.

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 State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x1D Play Client X Double
Y Double
Z Double
Strength Float A strength greater than or equal to 2.0 spawns a minecraft:explosion_emitter particle, while a lesser strength spawns a minecraft:explosion particle.
Record Count VarInt Number of elements in the following array.
Records Array of (Byte, Byte, Byte) Each record is 3 signed bytes long; the 3 bytes are the XYZ (respectively) signed 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.

Unload Chunk

Tells the client to unload a chunk column.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x1E Play Client Chunk X Int Block coordinate divided by 16, rounded down.
Chunk Z Int Block coordinate divided by 16, rounded down.

It is legal to send this packet even if the given chunk is not currently loaded.

Game Event

Used for a wide variety of game events, from weather to bed use to game mode to demo messages.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x1F Play Client Event Unsigned Byte See below.
Value Float Depends on Event.

Events:

Event Effect Value
0 No respawn block available Note: Displays message 'block.minecraft.spawn.not_valid' (You have no home bed or charged respawn anchor, or it was obstructed) to the player.
1 Begin raining
2 End raining
3 Change game mode 0: Survival, 1: Creative, 2: Adventure, 3: Spectator.
4 Win game 0: Just respawn player.
1: Roll the credits and respawn player.
Note that 1 is only sent by notchian server when player has not yet achieved advancement "The end?", else 0 is sent.
5 Demo event 0: Show welcome to demo screen.
101: Tell movement controls.
102: Tell jump control.
103: Tell inventory control.
104: Tell that the demo is over and print a message about how to take a screenshot.
6 Arrow hit player Note: Sent when any player is struck by an arrow.
7 Rain level change Note: Seems to change both sky color and lighting.
Rain level ranging from 0 to 1.
8 Thunder level change Note: Seems to change both sky color and lighting (same as Rain level change, but doesn't start rain). It also requires rain to render by notchian client.
Thunder level ranging from 0 to 1.
9 Play pufferfish sting sound
10 Play elder guardian mob appearance (effect and sound)
11 Enable respawn screen 0: Enable respawn screen.
1: Immediately respawn (sent when the doImmediateRespawn gamerule changes).

Open Horse Screen

This packet is used exclusively for opening the horse GUI. Open Screen is used for all other GUIs. The client will not open the inventory if the Entity ID does not point to an horse-like animal.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x20 Play Client Window ID Unsigned Byte
Slot count VarInt
Entity ID Int

Hurt Animation

Plays a bobbing animation for the entity receiving damage.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x21 Play Client
Entity ID VarInt The ID of the entity taking damage
Yaw Float The direction the damage is coming from in relation to the entity

Initialize World Border

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x22 Play Client X Double
Z Double
Old Diameter Double Current length of a single side of the world border, in meters.
New Diameter Double Target length of a single side of the world border, in meters.
Speed VarLong Number of real-time milliseconds until New Diameter is reached. It appears that Notchian server does not sync world border speed to game ticks, so it gets out of sync with server lag. If the world border is not moving, this is set to 0.
Portal Teleport Boundary VarInt Resulting coordinates from a portal teleport are limited to ±value. Usually 29999984.
Warning Blocks VarInt In meters.
Warning Time VarInt In seconds as set by /worldborder warning time.

The Notchian client determines how solid to display the warning by comparing to whichever is higher, the warning distance or whichever is lower, the distance from the current diameter to the target diameter or the place the border will be after warningTime seconds. In pseudocode: 

distance = max(min(resizeSpeed * 1000 * warningTime, abs(targetDiameter - currentDiameter)), warningDistance);
if (playerDistance < distance) {
    warning = 1.0 - playerDistance / distance;
} else {
    warning = 0.0;
}

Keep Alive

The server will frequently send out a keep-alive, each containing a random ID. The client must respond with the same payload (see serverbound Keep Alive). 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.

The Notchian server uses a system-dependent time in milliseconds to generate the keep alive ID value.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x23 Play Client Keep Alive ID Long

Chunk Data and Update Light

Main article: Chunk Format
See also: #Unload Chunk
Huh.png The following information needs to be added to this page:
How do biomes work now? The biome change happened at the same time as the seed change, but it's not clear how/if biomes could be computed given that it's not the actual seed... (/r/mojira discussion which notes that it seems to be some kind of interpolation)

This packet sends all block entities in the chunk (though sending them is not required; it is still legal to send them with Block Entity Data later). The light data in this packet is the same format as in the Update Light packet.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x24 Play Client Chunk X Int Chunk coordinate (block coordinate divided by 16, rounded down)
Chunk Z Int Chunk coordinate (block coordinate divided by 16, rounded down)
Heightmaps NBT Compound containing one long array named MOTION_BLOCKING, which is a heightmap for the highest solid block at each position in the chunk (as a compacted long array with 256 entries, with the number of bits per entry varying depending on the world's height, defined by the formula ceil(log2(height + 1))). The Notchian server also adds a WORLD_SURFACE long array, the purpose of which is unknown, but it's not required for the chunk to be accepted.
Size VarInt Size of Data in bytes
Data Byte array See data structure in Chunk Format
Number of block entities VarInt Number of elements in the following array
Block Entity Packed XZ Array Byte The packed section coordinates, calculated from ((blockX & 15) << 4) | (blockZ & 15)
Y Short The height relative to the world
Type VarInt The type of block entity
Data NBT The block entity's data, without the X, Y, and Z values
Sky Light Mask BitSet BitSet containing bits for each section in the world + 2. Each set bit indicates that the corresponding 16×16×16 chunk section has data in the Sky Light array below. The least significant bit is for blocks 16 blocks to 1 block below the min world height (one section below the world), while the most significant bit covers blocks 1 to 16 blocks above the max world height (one section above the world).
Block Light Mask BitSet BitSet containing bits for each section in the world + 2. Each set bit indicates that the corresponding 16×16×16 chunk section has data in the Block Light array below. The order of bits is the same as in Sky Light Mask.
Empty Sky Light Mask BitSet BitSet containing bits for each section in the world + 2. Each set bit indicates that the corresponding 16×16×16 chunk section has all zeros for its Sky Light data. The order of bits is the same as in Sky Light Mask.
Empty Block Light Mask BitSet BitSet containing bits for each section in the world + 2. Each set bit indicates that the corresponding 16×16×16 chunk section has all zeros for its Block Light data. The order of bits is the same as in Sky Light Mask.
Sky Light array count VarInt Number of entries in the following array; should match the number of bits set in Sky Light Mask
Sky Light arrays Length Array VarInt Length of the following array in bytes (always 2048)
Sky Light array Array of 2048 bytes There is 1 array for each bit set to true in the sky light mask, starting with the lowest value. Half a byte per light value. Indexed ((y<<8) | (z<<4) | x) / 2 If there's a remainder, masked 0xF0 else 0x0F.
Block Light array count VarInt Number of entries in the following array; should match the number of bits set in Block Light Mask
Block Light arrays Length Array VarInt Length of the following array in bytes (always 2048)
Block Light array Array of 2048 bytes There is 1 array for each bit set to true in the block light mask, starting with the lowest value. Half a byte per light value. Indexed ((y<<8) | (z<<4) | x) / 2 If there's a remainder, masked 0xF0 else 0x0F.

Note that the Notchian client requires an Set Center Chunk packet when it crosses a chunk border, otherwise it'll only display render distance + 2 chunks around the chunk it spawned in.

The compacted array format has been adjusted so that individual entries no longer span across multiple longs, affecting the main data array and heightmaps.

New format, 5 bits per block, containing the following references to blocks in a palette (not shown): 122344566480743131516914101202

0020863148418841 0000000000100000100001100011000101001000010000011000100001000001
01018A7260F68C87 0000000100000001100010100111001001100000111101101000110010000111

World Event

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 1023 (wither spawn), effect 1028 (enderdragon death), and effect 1038 (end portal opening); it is ignored on other effects.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x25 Play Client Event Int The event, see below.
Location Position The location of the event.
Data Int Extra data for certain events, see below.
Disable Relative Volume Boolean See above.

Events:

ID Name Data
Sound
1000 Dispenser dispenses
1001 Dispenser fails to dispense
1002 Dispenser shoots
1003 Ender eye launched
1004 Firework shot
1005 Iron door opened
1006 Wooden door opened
1007 Wooden trapdoor opened
1008 Fence gate opened
1009 Fire extinguished
1010 Play record Special case, see below for more info.
1011 Iron door closed
1012 Wooden door closed
1013 Wooden trapdoor closed
1014 Fence gate closed
1015 Ghast warns
1016 Ghast shoots
1017 Enderdragon shoots
1018 Blaze shoots
1019 Zombie attacks wood door
1020 Zombie attacks iron door
1021 Zombie breaks wood door
1022 Wither breaks block
1023 Wither spawned
1024 Wither shoots
1025 Bat takes off
1026 Zombie infects
1027 Zombie villager converted
1028 Ender dragon death
1029 Anvil destroyed
1030 Anvil used
1031 Anvil landed
1032 Portal travel
1033 Chorus flower grown
1034 Chorus flower died
1035 Brewing stand brewed
1036 Iron trapdoor opened
1037 Iron trapdoor closed
1038 End portal created in overworld
1039 Phantom bites
1040 Zombie converts to drowned
1041 Husk converts to zombie by drowning
1042 Grindstone used
1043 Book page turned
Particle
1500 Composter composts
1501 Lava converts block (either water to stone, or removes existing blocks such as torches)
1502 Redstone torch burns out
1503 Ender eye placed
2000 Spawns 10 smoke particles, e.g. from a fire Direction, see below.
2001 Block break + block break sound Block state, as an index into the global palette.
2002 Splash potion. Particle effect + glass break sound. RGB color as an integer (e.g. 8364543 for #7FA1FF).
2003 Eye of Ender entity break animation — particles and sound
2004 Mob spawn particle effect: smoke + flames
2005 Bonemeal particles How many particles to spawn (if set to 0, 15 are spawned).
2006 Dragon breath
2007 Instant splash potion. Particle effect + glass break sound. RGB color as an integer (e.g. 8364543 for #7FA1FF).
2008 Ender dragon destroys block
2009 Wet sponge vaporizes in nether
3000 End gateway spawn
3001 Enderdragon growl
3002 Electric spark
3003 Copper apply wax
3004 Copper remove wax
3005 Copper scrape oxidation

Smoke directions:

ID Direction
0 Down
1 Up
2 North
3 South
4 West
5 East

Play record: This is actually a special case within this packet. You can start/stop a record at a specific location. Use a valid Record ID to start a record (or overwrite a currently playing one), any other value will stop the record. See Data Generators for information on item IDs.

Particle

Displays the named particle

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x26 Play Client Particle ID VarInt The particle ID listed in the particle data type.
Long Distance Boolean If true, particle distance increases from 256 to 65536.
X Double X position of the particle.
Y Double Y position of the particle.
Z Double 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().
Max Speed Float
Particle Count Int The number of particles to create.
Data Varies The variable data listed in the particle data type.

Update Light

Updates light levels for a chunk. See Light for information on how lighting works in Minecraft.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x27 Play Client Chunk X VarInt Chunk coordinate (block coordinate divided by 16, rounded down)
Chunk Z VarInt Chunk coordinate (block coordinate divided by 16, rounded down)
Sky Light Mask BitSet BitSet containing bits for each section in the world + 2. Each set bit indicates that the corresponding 16×16×16 chunk section has data in the Sky Light array below. The least significant bit is for blocks 16 blocks to 1 block below the min world height (one section below the world), while the most significant bit covers blocks 1 to 16 blocks above the max world height (one section above the world).
Block Light Mask BitSet BitSet containing bits for each section in the world + 2. Each set bit indicates that the corresponding 16×16×16 chunk section has data in the Block Light array below. The order of bits is the same as in Sky Light Mask.
Empty Sky Light Mask BitSet BitSet containing bits for each section in the world + 2. Each set bit indicates that the corresponding 16×16×16 chunk section has all zeros for its Sky Light data. The order of bits is the same as in Sky Light Mask.
Empty Block Light Mask BitSet BitSet containing bits for each section in the world + 2. Each set bit indicates that the corresponding 16×16×16 chunk section has all zeros for its Block Light data. The order of bits is the same as in Sky Light Mask.
Sky Light array count VarInt Number of entries in the following array; should match the number of bits set in Sky Light Mask
Sky Light arrays Length Array VarInt Length of the following array in bytes (always 2048)
Sky Light array Array of 2048 bytes There is 1 array for each bit set to true in the sky light mask, starting with the lowest value. Half a byte per light value.
Block Light array count VarInt Number of entries in the following array; should match the number of bits set in Block Light Mask
Block Light arrays Length Array VarInt Length of the following array in bytes (always 2048)
Block Light array Array of 2048 bytes There is 1 array for each bit set to true in the block light mask, starting with the lowest value. Half a byte per light value.

A bit will never be set in both the block light mask and the empty block light mask, though it may be present in neither of them (if the block light does not need to be updated for the corresponding chunk section). The same applies to the sky light mask and the empty sky light mask.

Login (play)

Huh.png The following information needs to be added to this page:
Although the number of portal cooldown ticks is included in this packet, the whole portal usage process is still dictated entirely by the server. What kind of effect does this value have on the client, if any?

See Protocol Encryption for information on logging in.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x28 Play Client Entity ID Int The player's Entity ID (EID).
Is hardcore Boolean
Game mode Unsigned Byte 0: Survival, 1: Creative, 2: Adventure, 3: Spectator.
Previous Game mode Byte -1: Undefined (null), 0: Survival, 1: Creative, 2: Adventure, 3: Spectator. The previous game mode. Vanilla client uses this for the debug (F3 + N & F3 + F4) game mode switch. (More information needed)
Dimension Count VarInt Size of the following array.
Dimension Names Array of Identifier Identifiers for all dimensions on the server.
Registry Codec NBT Tag Compound Represents certain registries that are sent from the server and are applied on the client.
Dimension Type Identifier Name of the dimension type being spawned into.
Dimension Name Identifier Name of the dimension being spawned into.
Hashed seed Long First 8 bytes of the SHA-256 hash of the world's seed. Used client side for biome noise
Max Players VarInt Was once used by the client to draw the player list, but now is ignored.
View Distance VarInt Render distance (2-32).
Simulation Distance VarInt The distance that the client will process specific things, such as entities.
Reduced Debug Info Boolean If true, a Notchian client shows reduced information on the debug screen. For servers in development, this should almost always be false.
Enable respawn screen Boolean Set to false when the doImmediateRespawn gamerule is true.
Is Debug Boolean True if the world is a debug mode world; debug mode worlds cannot be modified and have predefined blocks.
Is Flat Boolean True if the world is a superflat world; flat worlds have different void fog and a horizon at y=0 instead of y=63.
Has death location Boolean If true, then the next two fields are present.
Death dimension name Optional Identifier Name of the dimension the player died in.
Death location Optional Position The location that the player died at.
Portal cooldown VarInt The number of ticks until the player can use the portal again.


The Registry Codec NBT Tag Compound (Default value in JSON as of 1.19, 1.19.2, 1.20.1) includes three registries: "minecraft:dimension_type", "minecraft:worldgen/biome", and "minecraft:chat_type".

Name Type Notes
minecraft:dimension_type TAG_Compound The dimension type registry (see below).
minecraft:worldgen/biome TAG_Compound The biome registry (see below).
minecraft:chat_type TAG_Compound The chat type registry (see below).

Dimension type registry:

Name Type Notes
type TAG_String The name of the registry. Always "minecraft:dimension_type".
value TAG_List List of dimension types registry entries (see below).

Dimension type registry entry:

Name Type Notes
name TAG_String The name of the dimension type (for example, "minecraft:overworld").
id TAG_Int The protocol ID of the dimension (matches the index of the element in the registry list).
element TAG_Compound The dimension type (see below).

Dimension type:

Name Type Meaning Values
piglin_safe TAG_Byte Whether piglins shake and transform to zombified piglins. 1: true, 0: false.
has_raids TAG_Byte Whether players with the Bad Omen effect can cause a raid. 1: true, 0: false.
monster_spawn_light_level TAG_Int or TAG_Compound Possibly the light level(s) at which monsters can spawn. When TAG_Int, 0 - 15. When TAG_Compound, contains the fields: type (TAG_String), appears to be always "minecraft:uniform", and value (TAG_Compound), which contains the fields: max_inclusive (TAG_Int), min_inclusive (TAG_Int).
monster_spawn_block_light_limit TAG_Int
natural TAG_Byte When false, compasses spin randomly. When true, nether portals can spawn zombified piglins. 1: true, 0: false.
ambient_light TAG_Float How much light the dimension has. 0.0 to 1.0.
fixed_time Optional TAG_Long If set, the time of the day is the specified value. If set, 0 to 24000.
infiniburn TAG_String A resource location defining what block tag to use for infiniburn. "#" or minecraft resource "#minecraft:...".
respawn_anchor_works TAG_Byte Whether players can charge and use respawn anchors. 1: true, 0: false.
has_skylight TAG_Byte Whether the dimension has skylight access or not. 1: true, 0: false.
bed_works TAG_Byte Whether players can use a bed to sleep. 1: true, 0: false.
effects TAG_String ? "minecraft:overworld", "minecraft:the_nether", "minecraft:the_end" or something else.
min_y TAG_Int The minimum Y level. A multiple of 16. Example: -64
height TAG_Int The maximum height. A multiple of 16. Example: 256
logical_height TAG_Int The maximum height to which chorus fruits and nether portals can bring players within this dimension. (Must be lower than height) 0-384.
coordinate_scale TAG_Double The multiplier applied to coordinates when traveling to the dimension. 0.00001 - 30000000.0
ultrawarm TAG_Byte Whether the dimensions behaves like the nether (water evaporates and sponges dry) or not. Also causes lava to spread thinner. 1: true, 0: false.
has_ceiling TAG_Byte Whether the dimension has a bedrock ceiling or not. When true, causes lava to spread faster. 1: true, 0: false.

Biome registry:

Name Type Notes
type TAG_String The name of the registry. Always "minecraft:worldgen/biome".
value TAG_List List of biome registry entries (see below).

Biome registry entry:

Name Type Notes
name TAG_String The name of the biome (for example, "minecraft:ocean").
id TAG_Int The protocol ID of the biome (matches the index of the element in the registry list).
element TAG_Compound The biome properties (see below).

Biome properties:

Name Type Meaning Values
has_precipitation TAG_Byte Determines whether or not the biome has precipitation. 1: true, 0: false.
depth Optional TAG_Float The depth factor of the biome. The default values vary between 1.5 and -1.8.
temperature TAG_Float The temperature factor of the biome. The default values vary between 2.0 and -0.5.
scale Optional TAG_Float ? The default values vary between 1.225 and 0.0.
downfall TAG_Float ? The default values vary between 1.0 and 0.0.
category Optional TAG_String The category of the biome. Known values are "ocean", "plains", "desert", "forest", "extreme_hills", "taiga", "swamp", "river", "nether", "the_end", "icy", "mushroom", "beach", "jungle", "mesa", "savanna", and "none".
temperature_modifier Optional TAG_String ? The only known value is "frozen".
effects sky_color TAG_Compound TAG_Int The color of the sky. Example: 8364543, which is #7FA1FF in RGB.
water_fog_color TAG_Int Possibly the tint color when swimming. Example: 8364543, which is #7FA1FF in RGB.
fog_color TAG_Int Possibly the color of the fog effect when looking past the view distance. Example: 8364543, which is #7FA1FF in RGB.
water_color TAG_Int The tint color of the water blocks. Example: 8364543, which is #7FA1FF in RGB.
foliage_color Optional TAG_Int The tint color of the grass. Example: 8364543, which is #7FA1FF in RGB.
grass_color Optional TAG_Int ? Example: 8364543, which is #7FA1FF in RGB.
grass_color_modifier Optional TAG_String Unknown, likely affects foliage color. If set, known values are "swamp" and "dark_forest".
music Optional TAG_Compound Music properties for the biome. If present, contains the fields: replace_current_music (TAG_Byte), sound (TAG_String), max_delay (TAG_Int), min_delay (TAG_Int).
ambient_sound Optional TAG_String Ambient soundtrack. If present, the ID of a soundtrack. Example: "minecraft:ambient.basalt_deltas.loop".
additions_sound Optional TAG_Compound Additional ambient sound that plays randomly. If present, contains the fields: sound (TAG_String), tick_chance (TAG_Double).
mood_sound Optional TAG_Compound Additional ambient sound that plays at an interval. If present, contains the fields: sound (TAG_String), tick_delay (TAG_Int), offset (TAG_Double), block_search_extent (TAG_Int).
particle probability Optional TAG_Compound TAG_FLOAT Particles that appear randomly in the biome. Possibly the probability of spawning the particle. ?
options TAG_COMPOUND The properties of the particle to spawn. Contains the field "type" (TAG_String), which identifies the particle type.

Chat registry:

Name Type Notes
type TAG_String The name of the registry. Always "minecraft:chat_type".
value TAG_List List of chat type registry entries (see below).

Chat type:

Name Type Notes
name TAG_String The type's name (eg "minecraft:chat")
id TAG_Int
elements TAG_Compound "chat" and "narration" TAG_Compound's (see below)

Chat type "chat" and "narration":

Name Type Notes
translation_key TAG_String
style TAG_Compound Similar to Chat JSON (only present in "chat" TAG_Compound)
parameters TAG_List of TAG_String Values can be "sender", "target" and "content"

Map Data

Updates a rectangular area on a map item.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x29 Play Client Map ID VarInt Map ID of the map being modified
Scale Byte From 0 for a fully zoomed-in map (1 block per pixel) to 4 for a fully zoomed-out map (16 blocks per pixel)
Locked Boolean True if the map has been locked in a cartography table
Has Icons Boolean
Icon Count Optional VarInt Number of elements in the following array. Only present if previous Boolean is true.
Icon Type Optional Array VarInt Enum See below
X Byte Map coordinates: -128 for furthest left, +127 for furthest right
Z Byte Map coordinates: -128 for highest, +127 for lowest
Direction Byte 0-15
Has Display Name Boolean
Display Name Optional Chat Only present if previous Boolean is true
Columns Unsigned Byte Number of columns updated
Rows Optional Unsigned Byte Only if Columns is more than 0; number of rows updated
X Optional Byte Only if Columns is more than 0; x offset of the westernmost column
Z Optional Byte Only if Columns is more than 0; z offset of the northernmost row
Length Optional VarInt Only if Columns is more than 0; length of the following array
Data Optional Array of Unsigned Byte Only if Columns is more than 0; see Map item format

For icons, a direction of 0 is a vertical icon and increments by 22.5° (360/16).

Types are based off of rows and columns in map_icons.png:

Icon type Result
0 White arrow (players)
1 Green arrow (item frames)
2 Red arrow
3 Blue arrow
4 White cross
5 Red pointer
6 White circle (off-map players)
7 Small white circle (far-off-map players)
8 Mansion
9 Temple
10 White Banner
11 Orange Banner
12 Magenta Banner
13 Light Blue Banner
14 Yellow Banner
15 Lime Banner
16 Pink Banner
17 Gray Banner
18 Light Gray Banner
19 Cyan Banner
20 Purple Banner
21 Blue Banner
22 Brown Banner
23 Green Banner
24 Red Banner
25 Black Banner
26 Treasure marker

Merchant Offers

The list of trades a villager NPC is offering.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x2A Play Client Window ID VarInt The ID of the window that is open; this is an int rather than a byte.
Size VarInt The number of trades in the following array.
Trades Input item 1 Array Slot The first item the player has to supply for this villager trade. The count of the item stack is the default "price" of this trade.
Output item Slot The item the player will receive from this villager trade.
Input item 2 Slot The second item the player has to supply for this villager trade. May be an empty slot.
Trade disabled Boolean True if the trade is disabled; false if the trade is enabled.
Number of trade uses Int Number of times the trade has been used so far. If equal to the maximum number of trades, the client will display a red X.
Maximum number of trade uses Int Number of times this trade can be used before it's exhausted.
XP Int Amount of XP the villager will earn each time the trade is used.
Special Price Int Can be zero or negative. The number is added to the price when an item is discounted due to player reputation or other effects.
Price Multiplier Float Can be low (0.05) or high (0.2). Determines how much demand, player reputation, and temporary effects will adjust the price.
Demand Int If positive, causes the price to increase. Negative values seem to be treated the same as zero.
Villager level VarInt Appears on the trade GUI; meaning comes from the translation key merchant.level. + level.

1: Novice, 2: Apprentice, 3: Journeyman, 4: Expert, 5: Master.

Experience VarInt Total experience for this villager (always 0 for the wandering trader).
Is regular villager Boolean True if this is a regular villager; false for the wandering trader. When false, hides the villager level and some other GUI elements.
Can restock Boolean True for regular villagers and false for the wandering trader. If true, the "Villagers restock up to two times per day." message is displayed when hovering over disabled trades.

Modifiers can increase or decrease the number of items for the first input slot. The second input slot and the output slot never change the nubmer of items. The number of items may never be less than 1, and never more than the stack size. If special price and demand are both zero, only the default price is displayed. If either is non-zero, then the adjusted price is displayed next to the crossed-out default price. The adjusted prices is calculated as follows:

Adjusted price = default price + floor(default price x multiplier x demand) + special price

The merchant UI, for reference

Update Entity Position

This packet is sent by the server when an entity moves less then 8 blocks; if an entity moves more than 8 blocks Teleport Entity should be sent instead.

This packet allows at most 8 blocks movement in any direction, because short range is from -32768 to 32767. And 32768 / (128 * 32) = 8.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x2B Play Client Entity ID VarInt
Delta X Short Change in X position as (currentX * 32 - prevX * 32) * 128.
Delta Y Short Change in Y position as (currentY * 32 - prevY * 32) * 128.
Delta Z Short Change in Z position as (currentZ * 32 - prevZ * 32) * 128.
On Ground Boolean

Update Entity Position and Rotation

This packet is sent by the server when an entity rotates and moves. Since a short range is limited from -32768 to 32767, and movement is offset of fixed-point numbers, this packet allows at most 8 blocks movement in any direction. (-32768 / (32 * 128) == -8)

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x2C Play Client Entity ID VarInt
Delta X Short Change in X position as (currentX * 32 - prevX * 32) * 128.
Delta Y Short Change in Y position as (currentY * 32 - prevY * 32) * 128.
Delta Z Short Change in Z position as (currentZ * 32 - prevZ * 32) * 128.
Yaw Angle New angle, not a delta.
Pitch Angle New angle, not a delta.
On Ground Boolean

Update Entity Rotation

This packet is sent by the server when an entity rotates.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x2D Play Client Entity ID VarInt
Yaw Angle New angle, not a delta.
Pitch Angle New angle, not a delta.
On Ground Boolean

Move Vehicle

Note that all fields use absolute positioning and do not allow for relative positioning.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x2E Play Client X Double Absolute position (X coordinate).
Y Double Absolute position (Y coordinate).
Z Double Absolute position (Z coordinate).
Yaw Float Absolute rotation on the vertical axis, in degrees.
Pitch Float Absolute rotation on the horizontal axis, in degrees.

Open Book

Sent when a player right clicks with a signed book. This tells the client to open the book GUI.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x2F Play Client Hand VarInt Enum 0: Main hand, 1: Off hand .

Open Screen

This is sent to the client when it should open an inventory, such as a chest, workbench, furnace, or other container. This message is not sent anywhere for clients opening their own inventory. Resending this packet with already existing window id, will update the window title and window type without closing the window. For horses, use Open Horse Screen.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x30 Play Client Window ID VarInt A unique id number for the window to be displayed. Notchian server implementation is a counter, starting at 1.
Window Type VarInt The window type to use for display. Contained in the minecraft:menu registry; see Inventory for the different values.
Window Title Chat The title of the window.

Open Sign Editor

Sent when the client has placed a sign and is allowed to send Update Sign. There must already be a sign at the given location (which the client does not do automatically) - send a Block Update first.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x31 Play Client Location Position
Is Front Text Boolean Whether the opened editor is for the front or on the back of the sign

Ping (play)

Packet is not used by the Notchian server. When sent to the client, client responds with a Pong packet with the same id.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x32 Play Client ID Int

Place Ghost Recipe

Response to the serverbound packet (Place Recipe), with the same recipe ID. Appears to be used to notify the UI.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x33 Play Client Window ID Byte
Recipe Identifier A recipe ID.

Player Abilities

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

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x34 Play Client Flags Byte Bit field, see below.
Flying Speed Float 0.05 by default.
Field of View Modifier Float Modifies the field of view, like a speed potion. A Notchian server will use the same value as the movement speed sent in the Update Attributes packet, which defaults to 0.1 for players.

About the flags:

Field Bit
Invulnerable 0x01
Flying 0x02
Allow Flying 0x04
Creative Mode (Instant Break) 0x08

Player Chat Message

Sends the client a message from a player.

Currently a lot is unknown about this packet, blank descriptions are for those that are unknown

Packet ID State Bound To Sector Field Name Field Type Notes
0x35 Play Client Header Sender UUID Used by the Notchian client for the disableChat launch option. Setting both longs to 0 will always display the message regardless of the setting.
Index VarInt
Message Signature Present Boolean States if a message signature is present
Message Signature bytes Optional Byte Array (256) Only present if Message Signature Present is true. Cryptography, the signature consists of the Sender UUID, Session UUID from the Player Session packet, Index, Salt, Timestamp in epoch seconds, the length of the original chat content, the original content itself, the length of Previous Messages, and all of the Previous message signatures. These values are hashed with SHA-256 and signed using the RSA cryptosystem. Modifying any of these values in the packet will cause this signature to fail. This buffer is always 256 bytes long and it is not length-prefixed.
Body Message String (256)
Timestamp Long Represents the time the message was signed as milliseconds since the epoch, used to check if the message was received within 2 minutes of it being sent.
Salt Long Cryptography, used for validating the message signature.
Previous Messages Total Previous Messages VarInt The maximum length is 20 in Notchian client.
Array (20) Message ID VarInt The message Id + 1, used for validating message signature. The next field is present only when value of this field is equals to -1.
Signature Optional Byte Array (256) The previous message's signature. Contains the same type of data as Message Signature bytes above.
Other Unsigned Content Present Boolean
Unsigned Content Optional Chat
Filter Type Enum VarInt If the message has been filtered
Filter Type Bits Optional BitSet Only present if the Filter Type is Partially Filtered.
Network target Chat Type VarInt The chat type from the Login (play) packet used for this message
Network name Chat
Network target name present Boolean
Network target name Optional Chat
Player Chat Handling Logic

Filter Types:

The filter type mask should NOT be specified unless partially filtered is selected

ID Name Description
0 PASS_THROUGH No filters applied
1 FULLY_FILTERED All filters applied
2 PARTIALLY_FILTERED Only some filters are applied.

End Combat

Unused by the Notchian client. This data was once used for twitch.tv metadata circa 1.8.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x36 Play Client Duration VarInt Length of the combat in ticks.

Enter Combat

Unused by the Notchian client. This data was once used for twitch.tv metadata circa 1.8.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x37 Play Client no fields

Combat Death

Used to send a respawn screen.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x38 Play Client Player ID VarInt Entity ID of the player that died (should match the client's entity ID).
Message Chat The death message.

Player Info Remove

Used by the server to remove players from the player list.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x39 Play Client Number of Players VarInt Number of elements in the following array.
Player Player Id Array of UUID UUIDs of players to remove.

Player Info Update

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

Multiple actions can be sent per player. The actions that are present are determined by the Actions bit set. For example, if bit 0 and 1 are set, each entry in the player list will have the player's UUID, followed by the data for add player, followed by the data for initialize chat.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x3A Play Client
Actions Byte Bit Mask. The actions to process. This must have a bit set for every action below, whether it's true or false.
Number Of Actions VarInt Number of elements in the following array.
Action UUID Array UUID The player UUID
Action Field Name
Actions bit 0: add player Name String (16)
Number Of Properties VarInt Number of elements in the following array.
Property Name Array String (32767)
Value String (32767)
Is Signed Boolean
Signature Optional String (32767) Only if Is Signed is true.
Actions bit 1: initialize chat Has Signature Data Boolean
Chat session ID UUID Only send if Has Signature Data is true.
Public key expiry time Long Key expiry time, as a UNIX timestamp in milliseconds. Only send if Has Signature Data is true.
Encoded public key size VarInt Size of the following array. Only send if Has Signature Data is true.
Encoded public key Byte Array The player's public key, in bytes. Only send if Has Signature Data is true.
Public key signature size VarInt Size of the following array. Only send if Has Signature Data is true.
Public key signature Byte Array The public key's digital signature. Only send if Has Signature Data is true.
Actions bit 2: update game mode Game mode VarInt
Actions bit 3: update listed Listed Boolean Whether the player should be listed on the player list.
Actions bit 4: update latency Ping VarInt Measured in milliseconds.
Actions bit 5: update display name Has Display Name Boolean
Display Name Optional Chat Only send if Has Display Name is true.

The Property field looks as in the response of Mojang API#UUID -> Profile + Skin/Cape, except of course using the protocol format instead of JSON. That is, each player will usually have one property with Name “textures” and Value being a base64-encoded JSON string as documented at Mojang API#UUID -> Profile + Skin/Cape. An empty properties array is also acceptable, and will cause clients to display the player with one of the two default skins depending on UUID.

Ping values correspond with icons in the following way:

  • A ping that negative (i.e. not known to the server yet) will result in the no connection icon.
  • A ping under 150 milliseconds will result in 5 bars
  • A ping under 300 milliseconds will result in 4 bars
  • A ping under 600 milliseconds will result in 3 bars
  • A ping under 1000 milliseconds (1 second) will result in 2 bars
  • A ping greater than or equal to 1 second will result in 1 bar.

Look At

Used to rotate the client player to face the given location or entity (for /teleport [<targets>] <x> <y> <z> facing).

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x3B Play Client
Feet/eyes VarInt Enum Values are feet=0, eyes=1. If set to eyes, aims using the head position; otherwise aims using the feet position.
Target x Double x coordinate of the point to face towards.
Target y Double y coordinate of the point to face towards.
Target z Double z coordinate of the point to face towards.
Is entity Boolean If true, additional information about an entity is provided.
Entity ID Optional VarInt Only if is entity is true — the entity to face towards.
Entity feet/eyes Optional VarInt Enum Whether to look at the entity's eyes or feet. Same values and meanings as before, just for the entity's head/feet.

If the entity given by entity ID cannot be found, this packet should be treated as if is entity was false.

Synchronize Player Position

Updates the player's position on the server. This packet will also close the “Downloading Terrain” screen when joining/respawning.

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 meters, the client will be 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.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x3C Play Client X Double Absolute or relative position, depending on Flags.
Y Double Absolute or relative position, depending on Flags.
Z Double Absolute or relative position, depending on Flags.
Yaw Float Absolute or relative rotation on the X axis, in degrees.
Pitch Float Absolute or relative rotation on the Y axis, in degrees.
Flags Byte Bit field, see below.
Teleport ID VarInt Client should confirm this packet with Confirm Teleportation containing the same Teleport ID.

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.
Field Bit
X 0x01
Y 0x02
Z 0x04
Y_ROT 0x08
X_ROT 0x10

Update Recipe Book

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x3D Play Client
Action VarInt 0: init, 1: add, 2: remove.
Crafting Recipe Book Open Boolean If true, then the crafting recipe book will be open when the player opens its inventory.
Crafting Recipe Book Filter Active Boolean If true, then the filtering option is active when the players opens its inventory.
Smelting Recipe Book Open Boolean If true, then the smelting recipe book will be open when the player opens its inventory.
Smelting Recipe Book Filter Active Boolean If true, then the filtering option is active when the players opens its inventory.
Blast Furnace Recipe Book Open Boolean If true, then the blast furnace recipe book will be open when the player opens its inventory.
Blast Furnace Recipe Book Filter Active Boolean If true, then the filtering option is active when the players opens its inventory.
Smoker Recipe Book Open Boolean If true, then the smoker recipe book will be open when the player opens its inventory.
Smoker Recipe Book Filter Active Boolean If true, then the filtering option is active when the players opens its inventory.
Array size 1 VarInt Number of elements in the following array.
Recipe IDs Array of Identifier
Array size 2 Optional VarInt Number of elements in the following array, only present if mode is 0 (init).
Recipe IDs Optional Array of Identifier Only present if mode is 0 (init)

Action:

  • 0 (init) = All the recipes in list 1 will be tagged as displayed, and all the recipes in list 2 will be added to the recipe book. Recipes that aren't tagged will be shown in the notification.
  • 1 (add) = All the recipes in the list are added to the recipe book and their icons will be shown in the notification.
  • 2 (remove) = Remove all the recipes in the list. This allows them to be re-displayed when they are re-added.

Remove Entities

Sent by the server when an entity is to be destroyed on the client.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x3E Play Client Count VarInt Number of elements in the following array.
Entity IDs Array of VarInt The list of entities to destroy.

Remove Entity Effect

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x3F Play Client Entity ID VarInt
Effect ID VarInt See this table.

Resource Pack

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x40 Play Client URL String (32767) The URL to the resource pack.
Hash String (40) A 40 character hexadecimal and lowercase SHA-1 hash of the resource pack file.
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
Forced Boolean The notchian client will be forced to use the resource pack from the server. If they decline they will be kicked from the server.
Has Prompt Message Boolean true If the next field will be sent false otherwise. When false, this is the end of the packet
Prompt Message Optional Chat This is shown in the prompt making the client accept or decline the resource pack.

Respawn

Huh.png The following information needs to be added to this page:
Although the number of portal cooldown ticks is included in this packet, the whole portal usage process is still dictated entirely by the server. What kind of effect does this value have on the client, if any?

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 State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x41 Play Client Dimension Type Identifier Valid dimensions are defined per dimension registry sent in Login (play)
Dimension Name Identifier Name of the dimension being spawned into.
Hashed seed Long First 8 bytes of the SHA-256 hash of the world's seed. Used client side for biome noise
Game mode Unsigned Byte 0: Survival, 1: Creative, 2: Adventure, 3: Spectator.
Previous Game mode Byte -1: Undefined (null), 0: Survival, 1: Creative, 2: Adventure, 3: Spectator. The previous game mode. Vanilla client uses this for the debug (F3 + N & F3 + F4) game mode switch. (More information needed)
Is Debug Boolean True if the world is a debug mode world; debug mode worlds cannot be modified and have predefined blocks.
Is Flat Boolean True if the world is a superflat world; flat worlds have different void fog and a horizon at y=0 instead of y=63.
Data kept Byte Bit mask. 0x01: Keep attributes, 0x02: Keep metadata. Tells which data should be kept on the client side once the player has respawned.

In the Notchian implementation, this is context dependent:

  • normal respawns (after death) keep no data;
  • exiting the end poem/credits keeps the attributes;
  • other dimension changes (portals or teleports) keep all data.
Has death location Boolean If true, then the next two fields are present.
Death dimension Name Optional Identifier Name of the dimension the player died in.
Death location Optional Position The location that the player died at.
Portal cooldown VarInt The number of ticks until the player can use the portal again.

Warning.png Avoid changing player's dimension to same dimension they were already in unless they are dead. If you change the dimension to one they are already in, weird bugs can occur, such as the player being unable to attack other players in new world (until they die and respawn).

Before 1.16, if you must respawn a player in the same dimension without killing them, send two respawn packets, one to a different world and then another to the world you want. You do not need to complete the first respawn; it only matters that you send two packets.

Set Head Rotation

Changes the direction an entity's head is facing.

While sending the Entity Look packet changes the vertical rotation of the head, sending this packet appears to be necessary to rotate the head horizontally.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x42 Play Client Entity ID VarInt
Head Yaw Angle New angle, not a delta.

Update Section Blocks

Fired whenever 2 or more blocks are changed within the same chunk on the same tick.

Warning.png Changing blocks in chunks not loaded by the client is unsafe (see note on Block Update).

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x43 Play Client Chunk section position Long Chunk section coordinate (encoded chunk x and z with each 22 bits, and section y with 20 bits, from left to right).
Blocks array size VarInt Number of elements in the following array.
Blocks Array of VarLong Each entry is composed of the block state id, shifted left by 12, and the relative block position in the chunk section (4 bits for x, z, and y, from left to right).

Chunk section position is encoded: 

((sectionX & 0x3FFFFF) << 42) | (sectionY & 0xFFFFF) | ((sectionZ & 0x3FFFFF) << 20);

and decoded: 

sectionX = long >> 42;
sectionY = long << 44 >> 44;
sectionZ = long << 22 >> 42;

Blocks are encoded: 

blockStateId << 12 | (blockLocalX << 8 | blockLocalZ << 4 | blockLocalY)
//Uses the local position of the given block position relative to its respective chunk section

Select Advancements Tab

Sent by the server to indicate that the client should switch advancement tab. Sent either when the client switches tab in the GUI or when an advancement in another tab is made.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x44 Play Client Has id Boolean Indicates if the next field is present.
Optional Identifier Identifier See below.

The Identifier can be one of the following:

Optional Identifier
minecraft:story/root
minecraft:nether/root
minecraft:end/root
minecraft:adventure/root
minecraft:husbandry/root

If no or an invalid identifier is sent, the client will switch to the first tab in the GUI.

Server Data

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x45 Play Client MOTD Chat
Has Icon Boolean
Icon Optional String (32767) Icon PNG base64 String
Enforces Secure Chat Boolean

Set Action Bar Text

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x46 Play Client Action bar text Chat Displays a message above the hotbar (the same as position 2 in Player Chat Message.

Set Border Center

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x47 Play Client X Double
Z Double

Set Border Lerp Size

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x48 Play Client Old Diameter Double Current length of a single side of the world border, in meters.
New Diameter Double Target length of a single side of the world border, in meters.
Speed VarLong Number of real-time milliseconds until New Diameter is reached. It appears that Notchian server does not sync world border speed to game ticks, so it gets out of sync with server lag. If the world border is not moving, this is set to 0.

Set Border Size

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x49 Play Client Diameter Double Length of a single side of the world border, in meters.

Set Border Warning Delay

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x4A Play Client Warning Time VarInt In seconds as set by /worldborder warning time.

Set Border Warning Distance

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x4B Play Client Warning Blocks VarInt In meters.

Set Camera

Sets the entity that the player renders from. This is normally used when the player left-clicks an entity while in spectator mode.

The player's camera will move with the entity and look where it is looking. The entity is often another player, but can be any type of entity. The player is unable to move this entity (move packets will act as if they are coming from the other entity).

If the given entity is not loaded by the player, this packet is ignored. To return control to the player, send this packet with their entity ID.

The Notchian server resets this (sends it back to the default entity) whenever the spectated entity is killed or the player sneaks, but only if they were spectating an entity. It also sends this packet whenever the player switches out of spectator mode (even if they weren't spectating an entity).

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x4C Play Client Camera ID VarInt ID of the entity to set the client's camera to.

The notchian client also loads certain shaders for given entities:

  • Creeper → shaders/post/creeper.json
  • Spider (and cave spider) → shaders/post/spider.json
  • Enderman → shaders/post/invert.json
  • Anything else → the current shader is unloaded

Set Held Item

Sent to change the player's slot selection.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x4D Play Client Slot Byte The slot which the player has selected (0–8).

Set Center Chunk

Huh.png The following information needs to be added to this page:
Why is this even needed? Is there a better name for it? My guess is that it's something to do with logical behavior with latency, but it still seems weird.

Updates the client's location. This is used to determine what chunks should remain loaded and if a chunk load should be ignored; chunks outside of the view distance may be unloaded.

Sent whenever the player moves across a chunk border horizontally, and also (according to testing) for any integer change in the vertical axis, even if it doesn't go across a chunk section border.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x4E Play Client Chunk X VarInt Chunk X coordinate of the player's position.
Chunk Z VarInt Chunk Z coordinate of the player's position.

Set Render Distance

Sent by the integrated singleplayer server when changing render distance. This packet is sent by the server when the client reappears in the overworld after leaving the end.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x4F Play Client View Distance VarInt Render distance (2-32).

Set Default 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 State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x50 Play Client Location Position Spawn location.
Angle Float The angle at which to respawn at.

Display Objective

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

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x51 Play Client Position Byte The position of the scoreboard. 0: list, 1: sidebar, 2: below name, 3 - 18: team specific sidebar, indexed as 3 + team color.
Score Name String (16) The unique name for the scoreboard to be displayed.

Set Entity Metadata

Updates one or more metadata properties for an existing entity. Any properties not included in the Metadata field are left unchanged.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x52 Play Client Entity ID VarInt
Metadata Entity Metadata

Link Entities

This packet is sent when an entity has been leashed to another entity.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x53 Play Client Attached Entity ID Int Attached entity's EID.
Holding Entity ID Int ID of the entity holding the lead. Set to -1 to detach.

Set Entity Velocity

Velocity is 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 State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x54 Play Client Entity ID VarInt
Velocity X Short Velocity on the X axis.
Velocity Y Short Velocity on the Y axis.
Velocity Z Short Velocity on the Z axis.

Set Equipment

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x55 Play Client Entity ID VarInt Entity's ID.
Equipment Slot Array Byte Enum Equipment slot. 0: main hand, 1: off hand, 2–5: armor slot (2: boots, 3: leggings, 4: chestplate, 5: helmet). Also has the top bit set if another entry follows, and otherwise unset if this is the last item in the array.
Item Slot

Set Experience

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

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x56 Play Client Experience bar Float Between 0 and 1.
Total Experience VarInt See Experience#Leveling up on the Minecraft Wiki for Total Experience to Level conversion.
Level VarInt

Set Health

Sent by the server to 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. New players logging in or respawning automatically get a saturation of 5.0. Eating food increases the saturation as well as the food bar.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x57 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.

Update Objectives

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

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x58 Play Client Objective Name String (16) A 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 Optional Chat Only if mode is 0 or 2. The text to be displayed for the score.
Type Optional VarInt Enum Only if mode is 0 or 2. 0 = "integer", 1 = "hearts".

Set Passengers

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x59 Play Client Entity ID VarInt Vehicle's EID.
Passenger Count VarInt Number of elements in the following array.
Passengers Array of VarInt EIDs of entity's passengers.

Update Teams

Creates and updates teams.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x5A Play Client Team Name String (16) A unique name for the team. (Shared with scoreboard).
Mode Byte Determines the layout of the remaining packet.
0: create team Team Display Name Chat
Friendly Flags Byte Bit mask. 0x01: Allow friendly fire, 0x02: can see invisible players on same team.
Name Tag Visibility String Enum (32) always, hideForOtherTeams, hideForOwnTeam, never.
Collision Rule String Enum (32) always, pushOtherTeams, pushOwnTeam, never.
Team Color VarInt Enum Used to color the name of players on the team; see below.
Team Prefix Chat Displayed before the names of players that are part of this team.
Team Suffix Chat Displayed after the names of players that are part of this team.
Entity Count VarInt Number of elements in the following array.
Entities Array of String (40) Identifiers for the entities in this team. For players, this is their username; for other entities, it is their UUID.
1: remove team no fields no fields
2: update team info Team Display Name Chat
Friendly Flags Byte Bit mask. 0x01: Allow friendly fire, 0x02: can see invisible entities on same team.
Name Tag Visibility String Enum (32) always, hideForOtherTeams, hideForOwnTeam, never
Collision Rule String Enum (32) always, pushOtherTeams, pushOwnTeam, never
Team Color VarInt Enum Used to color the name of players on the team; see below.
Team Prefix Chat Displayed before the names of players that are part of this team.
Team Suffix Chat Displayed after the names of players that are part of this team.
3: add entities to team Entity Count VarInt Number of elements in the following array.
Entities Array of String (40) Identifiers for the added entities. For players, this is their username; for other entities, it is their UUID.
4: remove entities from team Entity Count VarInt Number of elements in the following array.
Entities Array of String (40) Identifiers for the removed entities. For players, this is their username; for other entities, it is their UUID.

Team Color: The color of a team defines how the names of the team members are visualized; any formatting code can be used. The following table lists all the possible values.

ID Formatting
0-15 Color formatting, same values as Chat colors.
16 Obfuscated
17 Bold
18 Strikethrough
19 Underlined
20 Italic
21 Reset

Update Score

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

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x5B Play Client Entity Name String (40) The entity whose score this is. For players, this is their username; for other entities, it is their UUID.
Action VarInt Enum 0 to create/update an item. 1 to remove an item.
Objective Name String (16) The name of the objective the score belongs to.
Value Optional VarInt The score to be displayed next to the entry. Only sent when Action does not equal 1.

Set Simulation Distance

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x5C Play Client Simulation Distance VarInt The distance that the client will process specific things, such as entities.

Set Subtitle Text

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x5D Play Client Subtitle Text Chat

Update Time

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 State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x5E Play Client World Age 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.

Set Title Text

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x5F Play Client Title Text Chat

Set Title Animation Times

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x60 Play Client Fade In Int Ticks to spend fading in.
Stay Int Ticks to keep the title displayed.
Fade Out Int Ticks to spend fading out, not when to start fading out.

Entity Sound Effect

Plays a sound effect from an entity, either by hardcoded ID or Identifier. Sound IDs and names can be found here.

Warning.png Numeric sound effect IDs are liable to change between versions

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x61 Play Client Sound ID VarInt Represents the Sound ID + 1. If the value is 0, the packet contains a sound specified by Identifier.
Sound Name Optional Identifier Only present if Sound ID is 0
Has Fixed Range Optional Boolean Only present if Sound ID is 0.
Range Optional Float The fixed range of the sound. Only present if previous boolean is true and Sound ID is 0.
Sound Category VarInt Enum The category that this sound will be played from (current categories).
Entity ID VarInt
Volume Float 1.0 is 100%, capped between 0.0 and 1.0 by Notchian clients.
Pitch Float Float between 0.5 and 2.0 by Notchian clients.
Seed Long Seed used to pick sound variant.

Sound Effect

Plays a sound effect at the given location, either by hardcoded ID or Identifier. Sound IDs and names can be found here.

Warning.png Numeric sound effect IDs are liable to change between versions

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x62 Play Client Sound ID VarInt Represents the Sound ID + 1. If the value is 0, the packet contains a sound specified by Identifier.
Sound Name Optional Identifier Only present if Sound ID is 0
Has Fixed Range Optional Boolean Only present if Sound ID is 0.
Range Optional Float The fixed range of the sound. Only present if previous boolean is true and Sound ID is 0.
Sound Category VarInt Enum The category that this sound will be played from (current categories).
Effect Position X Int Effect X multiplied by 8 (fixed-point number with only 3 bits dedicated to the fractional part).
Effect Position Y Int Effect Y multiplied by 8 (fixed-point number with only 3 bits dedicated to the fractional part).
Effect Position Z Int Effect Z multiplied by 8 (fixed-point number with only 3 bits dedicated to the fractional part).
Volume Float 1.0 is 100%, capped between 0.0 and 1.0 by Notchian clients.
Pitch Float Float between 0.5 and 2.0 by Notchian clients.
Seed Long Seed used to pick sound variant.

Stop Sound

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x63 Play Client Flags Byte Controls which fields are present.
Source Optional VarInt Enum Only if flags is 3 or 1 (bit mask 0x1). See below. If not present, then sounds from all sources are cleared.
Sound Optional Identifier Only if flags is 2 or 3 (bit mask 0x2). A sound effect name, see Custom Sound Effect. If not present, then all sounds are cleared.

Categories:

Name Value
master 0
music 1
record 2
weather 3
block 4
hostile 5
neutral 6
player 7
ambient 8
voice 9

System Chat Message

Identifying the difference between Chat/System Message is important as it helps respect the user's chat visibility options. See processing chat for more info about these positions.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x64 Play Client Content Chat Limited to 262144 bytes.
Overlay Boolean Whether the message is an actionbar or chat message.

Set Tab List Header And Footer

This packet may be used by custom servers to display additional information above/below the player list. It is never sent by the Notchian server.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x65 Play Client Header Chat To remove the header, send a empty text component: {"text":""}.
Footer Chat To remove the footer, send a empty text component: {"text":""}.

Tag Query Response

Sent in response to Query Block Entity Tag or Query Entity Tag.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x66 Play Client Transaction ID VarInt Can be compared to the one sent in the original query packet.
NBT NBT Tag The NBT of the block or entity. May be a TAG_END (0) in which case no NBT is present.

Pickup 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 Set Player Position (and Set Player Position And Rotation) packet sent by the client. The collector entity can be any entity; it does not have to be a player. The collected entity also can be any entity, but the Notchian server only uses this for items, experience orbs, and the different varieties of arrows.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x67 Play Client Collected Entity ID VarInt
Collector Entity ID VarInt
Pickup Item Count VarInt Seems to be 1 for XP orbs, otherwise the number of items in the stack.

Teleport Entity

This packet is sent by the server when an entity moves more than 8 blocks.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x68 Play Client Entity ID VarInt
X Double
Y Double
Z Double
Yaw Angle (Y Rot)New angle, not a delta.
Pitch Angle (X Rot)New angle, not a delta.
On Ground Boolean

Update Advancements

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x69 Play Client Reset/Clear Boolean Whether to reset/clear the current advancements.
Mapping size VarInt Size of the following array.
Advancement mapping Key Array Identifier The identifier of the advancement.
Value Advancement See below
List size VarInt Size of the following array.
Identifiers Array of Identifier The identifiers of the advancements that should be removed.
Progress size VarInt Size of the following array.
Progress mapping Key Array Identifier The identifier of the advancement.
Value Advancement progress See below.

Advancement structure:

Field Name Field Type Notes
Has parent Boolean Indicates whether the next field exists.
Parent id Optional Identifier The identifier of the parent advancement.
Has display Boolean Indicates whether the next field exists.
Display data Optional advancement display See below.
Number of criteria VarInt Size of the following array.
Criteria Key Array Identifier The identifier of the criterion.
Value Void There is no content written here. Perhaps this will be expanded in the future?
Array length VarInt Number of arrays in the following array.
Requirements Array length 2 Array VarInt Number of elements in the following array.
Requirement Array of String Array of required criteria.
Sends telemetry data Boolean Whether the client should include this achievement in the telemetry data when it's completed.

The Notchian client only sends data for advancements on the minecraft namespace.

Advancement display:

Field Name Field Type Notes
Title Chat
Description Chat
Icon Slot
Frame type VarInt Enum 0 = task, 1 = challenge, 2 = goal.
Flags Int 0x01: has background texture; 0x02: show_toast; 0x04: hidden.
Background texture Optional Identifier Background texture location. Only if flags indicates it.
X coord Float
Y coord Float

Advancement progress:

Field Name Field Type Notes
Size VarInt Size of the following array.
Criteria Criterion identifier Array Identifier The identifier of the criterion.
Criterion progress Criterion progress

Criterion progress:

Field Name Field Type Notes
Achieved Boolean If true, next field is present.
Date of achieving Optional Long As returned by Date.getTime.

Update Attributes

Sets attributes on the given entity.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x6A Play Client Entity ID VarInt
Number Of Properties VarInt Number of elements in the following array.
Property Key Array Identifier See below.
Value Double See below.
Number Of Modifiers VarInt Number of elements in the following array.
Modifiers Array of Modifier Data See Attribute#Modifiers. Modifier Data defined below.

Known Key values (see also Attribute#Modifiers):

Key Default Min Max Label
generic.max_health 20.0 1.0 1024.0 Max Health.
generic.follow_range 32.0 0.0 2048.0 Follow Range.
generic.knockback_resistance 0.0 0.0 1.0 Knockback Resistance.
generic.movement_speed 0.7 0.0 1024.0 Movement Speed.
generic.flying_speed 0.4 0.0 1024.0 Flying Speed.
generic.attack_damage 2.0 0.0 2048.0 Attack Damage.
generic.attack_knockback 0.0 0.0 5.0 —
generic.attack_speed 4.0 0.0 1024.0 Attack Speed.
generic.armor 0.0 0.0 30.0 Armor.
generic.armor_toughness 0.0 0.0 20.0 Armor Toughness.
generic.luck 0.0 -1024.0 1024.0 Luck.
zombie.spawn_reinforcements 0.0 0.0 1.0 Spawn Reinforcements Chance.
horse.jump_strength 0.7 0.0 2.0 Jump Strength.
generic.reachDistance 5.0 0.0 1024.0 Player Reach Distance (Forge only).
forge.swimSpeed 1.0 0.0 1024.0 Swimming Speed (Forge only).

Modifier Data structure:

Field Name Field Type Notes
UUID UUID
Amount Double May be positive or negative.
Operation Byte See below.

The operation controls how the base value of the modifier is changed.

  • 0: Add/subtract amount
  • 1: Add/subtract amount percent of the current value
  • 2: Multiply by amount percent

All of the 0's are applied first, and then the 1's, and then the 2's.

Feature Flags

Used to enable and disable features, generally experimental ones, on the client.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x6B Play Client Total Features VarInt Number of features that appear in the array below.
Feature Flags Identifier Array

As of 1.20.1, the following feature flags are available:

  • minecraft:vanilla - enables vanilla features
  • minecraft:bundle - enables support for the bundle

Entity Effect

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x6C Play Client Entity ID VarInt
Effect ID VarInt See this table.
Amplifier Byte Notchian client displays effect level as Amplifier + 1.
Duration VarInt Duration in ticks.
Flags Byte Bit field, see below.
Has Factor Data Boolean Used in DARKNESS effect
Factor Codec NBT Tag See below

Within flags:

  • 0x01: Is ambient - was the effect spawned from a beacon? All beacon-generated effects are ambient. Ambient effects use a different icon in the HUD (blue border rather than gray). If all effects on an entity are ambient, the "Is potion effect ambient" living metadata field should be set to true. Usually should not be enabled.
  • 0x02: Show particles - should all particles from this effect be hidden? Effects with particles hidden are not included in the calculation of the effect color, and are not rendered on the HUD (but are still rendered within the inventory). Usually should be enabled.
  • 0x04: Show icon - should the icon be displayed on the client? Usually should be enabled.

Factor Data

Name Type Notes
padding_duration TAG_INT
factor_start TAG_FLOAT
factor_target TAG_FLOAT
factor_current TAG_FLOAT
effect_changed_timestamp TAG_INT
factor_previous_frame TAG_FLOAT
had_effect_last_tick TAG_BOOLEAN

Update Recipes

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x6D Play Client Num Recipes VarInt Number of elements in the following array.
Recipe Type Array Identifier The recipe type, see below.
Recipe ID Identifier
Data Varies Additional data for the recipe.

Recipe types:

Type Description Data
minecraft:crafting_shapeless Shapeless crafting recipe. All items in the ingredient list must be present, but in any order/slot. As follows:
Name Type Description
Group String Used to group similar recipes together in the recipe book. Tag is present in recipe JSON.
Category VarInt Enum Building = 0, Redstone = 1, Equipment = 2, Misc = 3
Ingredient count VarInt Number of elements in the following array.
Ingredients Array of Ingredient.
Result Slot
minecraft:crafting_shaped Shaped crafting recipe. All items must be present in the same pattern (which may be flipped horizontally or translated). As follows:
Name Type Description
Width VarInt
Height VarInt
Group String Used to group similar recipes together in the recipe book. Tag is present in recipe JSON.
Category VarInt Enum Building = 0, Redstone = 1, Equipment = 2, Misc = 3
Ingredients Array of Ingredient Length is width * height. Indexed by x + (y * width).
Result Slot
Show notification Boolean Show a toast when the recipe is added.
minecraft:crafting_special_armordye Recipe for dying leather armor As follows:
Name Type Description
Category VarInt Enum Building = 0, Redstone = 1, Equipment = 2, Misc = 3
minecraft:crafting_special_bookcloning Recipe for copying contents of written books
minecraft:crafting_special_mapcloning Recipe for copying maps
minecraft:crafting_special_mapextending Recipe for adding paper to maps
minecraft:crafting_special_firework_rocket Recipe for making firework rockets
minecraft:crafting_special_firework_star Recipe for making firework stars
minecraft:crafting_special_firework_star_fade Recipe for making firework stars fade between multiple colors
minecraft:crafting_special_repairitem Recipe for repairing items via crafting
minecraft:crafting_special_tippedarrow Recipe for crafting tipped arrows
minecraft:crafting_special_bannerduplicate Recipe for copying banner patterns
minecraft:crafting_special_shielddecoration Recipe for applying a banner's pattern to a shield
minecraft:crafting_special_shulkerboxcoloring Recipe for recoloring a shulker box
minecraft:crafting_special_suspiciousstew Recipe for crafting suspicious stews
minecraft:crafting_decorated_pot Recipe for crafting decorated pots
minecraft:smelting Smelting recipe As follows:
Name Type Description
Group String Used to group similar recipes together in the recipe book.
Category VarInt Enum Food = 0, Blocks = 1, Misc = 2
Ingredient Ingredient
Result Slot
Experience Float
Cooking time VarInt
minecraft:blasting Blast furnace recipe
minecraft:smoking Smoker recipe
minecraft:campfire_cooking Campfire recipe
minecraft:stonecutting Stonecutter recipe As follows:
Name Type Description
Group String Used to group similar recipes together in the recipe book. Tag is present in recipe JSON.
Ingredient Ingredient
Result Slot
minecraft:smithing_transform Recipe for smithing netherite gear As follows:
Name Type Description
Template Ingredient The smithing template.
Base Ingredient The base item.
Addition Ingredient The additional ingredient.
Result Slot
minecraft:smithing_trim Recipe for applying armor trims As follows:
Name Type Description
Template Ingredient The smithing template.
Base Ingredient The base item.
Addition Ingredient The additional ingredient.

Ingredient is defined as:

Name Type Description
Count VarInt Number of elements in the following array.
Items Array of Slot Any item in this array may be used for the recipe. The count of each item should be 1.

Update Tags

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x6E Play Client Length of the array VarInt
Array of tags Tag type Array Identifier Tag identifier (Vanilla required tags are minecraft:block, minecraft:item, minecraft:fluid, minecraft:entity_type, and minecraft:game_event)
Array of Tag (See below)

Tags look like:

Field Name Field Type Notes
Length VarInt Number of elements in the following array
Tags Tag name Array Identifier
Count VarInt Number of elements in the following array
Entries Array of VarInt Numeric ID of the given type (block, item, etc.).

More information on tags is available at: https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Tag

And a list of all tags is here: https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Tag#List_of_tags

Serverbound

Confirm Teleportation

Sent by client as confirmation of Synchronize Player Position.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x00 Play Server Teleport ID VarInt The ID given by the Synchronize Player Position packet.

Query Block Entity Tag

Used when Shift+F3+I is pressed while looking at a block.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x01 Play Server Transaction ID VarInt An incremental ID so that the client can verify that the response matches.
Location Position The location of the block to check.

Change Difficulty

Must have at least op level 2 to use. Appears to only be used on singleplayer; the difficulty buttons are still disabled in multiplayer.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x02 Play Server New difficulty Byte 0: peaceful, 1: easy, 2: normal, 3: hard .

Message Acknowledgment

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x03 Play Server Message Count VarInt

Chat Command

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x04 Play Server Command String (256) The command typed by the client.
Timestamp Long The timestamp that the command was executed.
Salt Long The salt for the following argument signatures.
Array length VarInt Number of entries in the following array. The maximum length in Notchian server is 8.
Array of argument signatures Argument name Array (8) String (16) The name of the argument that is signed by the following signature.
Signature Byte Array (256) The signature that verifies the argument. Always 256 bytes and is not length-prefixed.
Message Count VarInt
Acknowledged Fixed BitSet (20)

Chat Message

Used to send a chat message to the server. The message may not be longer than 256 characters or else the server will kick the client.

The server will broadcast the same chat message to all players on the server (including the player that sent the message), prepended with player's name. Specifically, it will respond with a translate chat component, "chat.type.text" with the first parameter set to the display name of the player (including some chat component logic to support clicking the name to send a PM) and the second parameter set to the message. See processing chat for more information.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x05 Play Server Message String (256 chars)
Timestamp Long
Salt Long The salt used to verify the signature hash.
Has Signature Boolean Whether the next field is present.
Signature Optional Byte Array The signature used to verify the chat message's authentication. When present, always 256 bytes.
Message Count VarInt
Acknowledged BitSet (20)

Player Session

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x06 Play Server Session Id UUID
Public Key Expires At Long The time the play session key expires in epoch milliseconds.
Public Key Length VarInt Length of the proceeding public key.
Public Key Byte Array A byte array of an X.509-encoded public key.
Key Signature Length VarInt Length of the proceeding key signature array.
Key Signature Byte Array The signature consists of the player UUID, the key expiration timestamp, and the public key data. These values are hashed using SHA-1 and signed using Mojang's private RSA key.

Client Command

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x07 Play Server Action ID VarInt Enum See below

Action ID values:

Action ID Action Notes
0 Perform respawn Sent when the client is ready to complete login and when the client is ready to respawn after death.
1 Request stats Sent when the client opens the Statistics menu.

Client Information

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

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x08 Play Server Locale String (16) e.g. en_GB.
View Distance Byte Client-side render distance, in chunks.
Chat Mode VarInt Enum 0: enabled, 1: commands only, 2: hidden. See processing chat for more information.
Chat Colors Boolean “Colors” multiplayer setting. Can the chat be colored?
Displayed Skin Parts Unsigned Byte Bit mask, see below.
Main Hand VarInt Enum 0: Left, 1: Right.
Enable text filtering Boolean Enables filtering of text on signs and written book titles. Currently always false (i.e. the filtering is disabled)
Allow server listings Boolean Servers usually list online players, this option should let you not show up in that list.

Displayed Skin Parts flags:

  • Bit 0 (0x01): Cape enabled
  • Bit 1 (0x02): Jacket enabled
  • Bit 2 (0x04): Left Sleeve enabled
  • Bit 3 (0x08): Right Sleeve enabled
  • Bit 4 (0x10): Left Pants Leg enabled
  • Bit 5 (0x20): Right Pants Leg enabled
  • Bit 6 (0x40): Hat enabled

The most significant bit (bit 7, 0x80) appears to be unused.

Command Suggestions Request

Sent when the client needs to tab-complete a minecraft:ask_server suggestion type.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x09 Play Server Transaction Id VarInt The id of the transaction that the server will send back to the client in the response of this packet. Client generates this and increments it each time it sends another tab completion that doesn't get a response.
Text String (32500) All text behind the cursor without the / (e.g. to the left of the cursor in left-to-right languages like English).

Click Container Button

Used when clicking on window buttons. Until 1.14, this was only used by enchantment tables.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x0A Play Server Window ID Byte The ID of the window sent by Open Screen.
Button ID Byte Meaning depends on window type; see below.
Window type ID Meaning
Enchantment Table 0 Topmost enchantment.
1 Middle enchantment.
2 Bottom enchantment.
Lectern 1 Previous page (which does give a redstone output).
2 Next page.
3 Take Book.
100+page Opened page number - 100 + number.
Stonecutter Recipe button number - 4*row + col. Depends on the item.
Loom Recipe button number - 4*row + col. Depends on the item.

Click Container

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

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x0B Play Server Window ID Unsigned Byte The ID of the window which was clicked. 0 for player inventory.
State ID VarInt The last recieved State ID from either a Set Container Slot or a Set Container Content packet
Slot Short The clicked slot number, see below.
Button Byte The button used in the click, see below.
Mode VarInt Enum Inventory operation mode, see below.
Length of the array VarInt
Array of slots Slot number Array Short
Slot data Slot New data for this slot
Carried item Slot Item carried by the cursor. Has to be empty (item ID = -1) for drop mode, otherwise nothing will happen.

See Inventory 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 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
0 -999 Left click outside inventory (drop cursor stack)
1 -999 Right click outside inventory (drop cursor single item)
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
⋮ ⋮ Button is used as the slot index (impossible in vanilla clients)
40 Normal Offhand swap key F
3 2 Normal Middle click, only defined for creative players in non-player inventories.
4 0 Normal* Drop key (Q) (* Clicked item is always empty)
1 Normal* Control + Drop key (Q) (* Clicked item is always empty)
5 0 -999 Starting left mouse drag
4 -999 Starting right mouse drag
8 -999 Starting middle mouse drag, only defined for creative players in non-player inventories.
1 Normal Add slot for left-mouse drag
5 Normal Add slot for right-mouse drag
9 Normal Add slot for middle-mouse drag, only defined for creative players in non-player inventories.
2 -999 Ending left mouse drag
6 -999 Ending right mouse drag
10 -999 Ending middle mouse drag, only defined for creative players in non-player inventories.
6 0 Normal Double click
1 Normal Pickup all but check items in reverse order (impossible in vanilla clients)

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 item), then holding mouse button (left, right or middle) and dragging held 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.

Close Container

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

Notchian clients send a Close Window packet with Window ID 0 to close their inventory even though there is never an Open Screen packet for the inventory.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x0C Play Server Window ID Unsigned Byte This is the ID of the window that was closed. 0 for player inventory.

Plugin Message

Main article: Plugin channels

Mods and plugins can use this to send their data. Minecraft itself uses some plugin channels. These internal channels are in the minecraft namespace.

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

Note that the length of Data is known only from the packet length, since the packet has no length field of any kind.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x0D Play Server Channel Identifier Name of the plugin channel used to send the data.
Data Byte Array (32767) Any data, depending on the channel. minecraft: channels are documented here. The length of this array must be inferred from the packet length.

In Notchian server, the maximum data length is 32767 bytes.

Edit Book

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x0E Play Server Slot VarInt The hotbar slot where the written book is located
Count VarInt Number of elements in the following array
Entries Array of Strings (8192 chars) Text from each page.
Has title Boolean If true, the next field is present.
Title Optional String (128 chars) Title of book.

When editing a draft, the NBT section of the Slot contains this: 

TAG_Compound(''): 1 entry
{
  TAG_List('pages'): 2 entries
  {
    TAG_String(0): 'Something on Page 1'
    TAG_String(1): 'Something on Page 2'
  }
}

When signing the book, it instead looks like this: 

TAG_Compound(''): 3 entires
{
  TAG_String('author'): 'Steve'
  TAG_String('title'): 'A Wonderful Book'
  TAG_List('pages'): 2 entries
  {
    TAG_String(0): 'Something on Page 1'
    TAG_String(1): 'Something on Page 2'
  }
}

Query Entity Tag

Used when Shift+F3+I is pressed while looking at an entity.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x0F Play Server Transaction ID VarInt An incremental ID so that the client can verify that the response matches.
Entity ID VarInt The ID of the entity to query.

Interact

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.

The target X, Y, and Z fields represent the difference between the vector location of the cursor at the time of the packet and the entity's position.

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

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x10 Play Server Entity ID VarInt The ID of the entity to interact.
Type VarInt Enum 0: interact, 1: attack, 2: interact at.
Target X Optional Float Only if Type is interact at.
Target Y Optional Float Only if Type is interact at.
Target Z Optional Float Only if Type is interact at.
Hand Optional VarInt Enum Only if Type is interact or interact at; 0: main hand, 1: off hand.
Sneaking Boolean If the client is sneaking.

Jigsaw Generate

Sent when Generate is pressed on the Jigsaw Block interface.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x11 Play Server Location Position Block entity location.
Levels VarInt Value of the levels slider/max depth to generate.
Keep Jigsaws Boolean

Keep Alive

The server will frequently send out a keep-alive (see Clientbound Keep Alive), each containing a random ID. The client must respond with the same packet.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x12 Play Server Keep Alive ID Long

Lock Difficulty

Must have at least op level 2 to use. Appears to only be used on singleplayer; the difficulty buttons are still disabled in multiplayer.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x13 Play Server Locked Boolean

Set Player Position

Updates the player's XYZ position on the server.

Checking for moving too fast is achieved like this:

  • Each server tick, the player's current position is stored
  • When a player moves, the changes in x, y, and z coordinates are compared with the positions from the previous tick (Δx, Δy, Δz)
  • Total movement distance squared is computed as Δx² + Δy² + Δz²
  • The expected movement distance squared is computed as velocityX² + velocityY² + velocityZ²
  • If the total movement distance squared value minus the expected movement distance squared value is more than 100 (300 if the player is using an elytra), they are moving too fast.

If the player is moving too fast, it will be logged that "<player> moved too quickly! " followed by the change in x, y, and z, and the player will be teleported back to their current (before this packet) serverside position.

Also, if the absolute value of X or the absolute value of Z is a value greater than 3.2×107, or X, Y, or Z are not finite (either positive infinity, negative infinity, or NaN), the client will be kicked for “Invalid move player packet received”.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x14 Play Server X Double Absolute position.
Feet Y Double Absolute feet position, normally Head Y - 1.62.
Z Double Absolute position.
On Ground Boolean True if the client is on the ground, false otherwise.

Set Player Position and Rotation

A combination of Move Player Rotation and Move Player Position.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x15 Play Server X Double Absolute position.
Feet Y Double Absolute feet position, normally Head Y - 1.62.
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 Boolean True if the client is on the ground, false otherwise.

Set Player Rotation

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 and pitch of player (in degrees), standing at point (x0, y0, z0) and looking towards point (x, y, z) can be calculated with: 

dx = x-x0
dy = y-y0
dz = z-z0
r = sqrt( dx*dx + dy*dy + dz*dz )
yaw = -atan2(dx,dz)/PI*180
if yaw < 0 then
    yaw = 360 + yaw
pitch = -arcsin(dy/r)/PI*180

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 State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x16 Play Server Yaw Float Absolute rotation on the X Axis, in degrees.
Pitch Float Absolute rotation on the Y Axis, in degrees.
On Ground Boolean True if the client is on the ground, false otherwise.

Set Player On Ground

This packet as well as Set Player Position, Set Player Rotation, and Set Player Position and Rotation are called the “serverbound movement packets”. Vanilla clients will send Move Player Position once every 20 ticks even for a stationary 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 State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x17 Play Server On Ground Boolean True if the client is on the ground, false otherwise.

Move Vehicle

Sent when a player moves in a vehicle. Fields are the same as in Set Player Position and Rotation. Note that all fields use absolute positioning and do not allow for relative positioning.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x18 Play Server X Double Absolute position (X coordinate).
Y Double Absolute position (Y coordinate).
Z Double Absolute position (Z coordinate).
Yaw Float Absolute rotation on the vertical axis, in degrees.
Pitch Float Absolute rotation on the horizontal axis, in degrees.

Paddle Boat

Used to visually update whether boat paddles are turning. The server will update the Boat entity metadata to match the values here.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x19 Play Server Left paddle turning Boolean
Right paddle turning Boolean

Right paddle turning is set to true when the left button or forward button is held, left paddle turning is set to true when the right button or forward button is held.

Pick Item

Used to swap out an empty space on the hotbar with the item in the given inventory slot. The Notchian client uses this for pick block functionality (middle click) to retrieve items from the inventory.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x1A Play Server Slot to use VarInt See Inventory.

The server will first search the player's hotbar for an empty slot, starting from the current slot and looping around to the slot before it. If there are no empty slots, it will start a second search from the current slot and find the first slot that does not contain an enchanted item. If there still are no slots that meet that criteria, then the server will use the currently selected slot.

After finding the appropriate slot, the server swaps the items and then send 3 packets:

  • Set Container Slot, with window ID set to -2 and slot set to the newly chosen slot and the item set to the item that is now in that slot (which was previously at the slot the client requested)
  • Set Slot, with window ID set to -2 and slot set to the slot the player requested, with the item that is now in that slot and was previously on the hotbar slot
  • Set Held Item, with the slot set to the newly chosen slot.

Place Recipe

This packet is sent when a player clicks a recipe in the crafting book that is craftable (white border).

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x1B Play Server Window ID Byte
Recipe Identifier A recipe ID.
Make all Boolean Affects the amount of items processed; true if shift is down when clicked.

Player Abilities

The vanilla client sends this packet when the player starts/stops flying with the Flags parameter changed accordingly.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x1C Play Server Flags Byte Bit mask. 0x02: is flying.

Player Action

Sent when the player mines a block. A Notchian server only accepts digging packets with coordinates within a 6-unit radius between the center of the block and 1.5 units from the player's feet (not their eyes).

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x1D Play Server Status VarInt Enum The action the player is taking against the block (see below).
Location Position Block position.
Face Byte Enum The face being hit (see below).
Sequence VarInt

Status can be one of seven values:

Value Meaning Notes
0 Started digging
1 Cancelled digging Sent when the player lets go of the Mine Block key (default: left click).
2 Finished digging Sent when the client thinks it is finished.
3 Drop item stack Triggered by using the Drop Item key (default: Q) with the modifier to drop the entire selected stack (default: Control or Command, depending on OS). Location is always set to 0/0/0, Face is always set to -Y.
4 Drop item Triggered by using the Drop Item key (default: Q). Location is always set to 0/0/0, Face is always set to -Y.
5 Shoot arrow / finish eating Indicates that the currently held item should have its state updated such as eating food, pulling back bows, using buckets, etc. Location is always set to 0/0/0, Face is always set to -Y.
6 Swap item in hand Used to swap or assign an item to the second hand. Location is always set to 0/0/0, Face is always set to -Y.

The Face field can be one of the following values, representing the face being hit:

Value Offset Face
0 -Y Bottom
1 +Y Top
2 -Z North
3 +Z South
4 -X West
5 +X East

Player Command

Sent by the client to indicate that it has performed certain actions: sneaking (crouching), sprinting, exiting a bed, jumping with a horse, and opening a horse's inventory while riding it.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x1E Play Server Entity ID VarInt Player ID
Action ID VarInt Enum The ID of the action, see below.
Jump Boost VarInt Only used by the “start jump with horse” action, in which case it ranges from 0 to 100. In all other cases it is 0.

Action ID can be one of the following values:

ID Action
0 Start sneaking
1 Stop sneaking
2 Leave bed
3 Start sprinting
4 Stop sprinting
5 Start jump with horse
6 Stop jump with horse
7 Open horse inventory
8 Start flying with elytra

Leave bed is only sent when the “Leave Bed” button is clicked on the sleep GUI, not when waking up due today time.

Open horse inventory is only sent when pressing the inventory key (default: E) while on a horse — all other methods of opening a horse's inventory (involving right-clicking or shift-right-clicking it) do not use this packet.

Player Input

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x1F Play Server Sideways Float Positive to the left of the player.
Forward Float Positive forward.
Flags Unsigned Byte Bit mask. 0x1: jump, 0x2: unmount.

Also known as 'Input' packet.

Pong (play)

Response to the clientbound packet (Ping) with the same id.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x20 Play Server ID Int id is the same as the ping packet

Change Recipe Book Settings

Replaces Recipe Book Data, type 1.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x21 Play Server Book ID VarInt Enum 0: crafting, 1: furnace, 2: blast furnace, 3: smoker.
Book Open Boolean
Filter Active Boolean

Set Seen Recipe

Sent when recipe is first seen in recipe book. Replaces Recipe Book Data, type 0.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x22 Play Server Recipe ID Identifier

Rename Item

Sent as a player is renaming an item in an anvil (each keypress in the anvil UI sends a new Rename Item packet). If the new name is empty, then the item loses its custom name (this is different from setting the custom name to the normal name of the item). The item name may be no longer than 50 characters long, and if it is longer than that, then the rename is silently ignored.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x23 Play Server Item name String (32767) The new name of the item.

Resource Pack

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x24 Play Server Result VarInt Enum 0: successfully loaded, 1: declined, 2: failed download, 3: accepted.

Seen Advancements

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x25 Play Server Action VarInt Enum 0: Opened tab, 1: Closed screen.
Tab ID Optional identifier Only present if action is Opened tab.

Select Trade

When a player selects a specific trade offered by a villager NPC.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x26 Play Server Selected slot VarInt The selected slot in the players current (trading) inventory. (Was a full Integer for the plugin message).

Set Beacon Effect

Changes the effect of the current beacon.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x27 Play Server
Has Primary Effect Boolean
Primary Effect VarInt A Potion ID. (Was a full Integer for the plugin message).
Has Secondary Effect Boolean
Secondary Effect VarInt A Potion ID. (Was a full Integer for the plugin message).

Set Held Item

Sent when the player changes the slot selection

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x28 Play Server Slot Short The slot which the player has selected (0–8).

Program Command Block

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x29 Play Server
Location Position
Command String (32767)
Mode VarInt Enum One of SEQUENCE (0), AUTO (1), or REDSTONE (2).
Flags Byte 0x01: Track Output (if false, the output of the previous command will not be stored within the command block); 0x02: Is conditional; 0x04: Automatic.

Program Command Block Minecart

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x2A Play Server Entity ID VarInt
Command String (32767)
Track Output Boolean If false, the output of the previous command will not be stored within the command block.

Set Creative Mode Slot

While the user is in the standard inventory (i.e., not a crafting bench) in Creative mode, the player will send this packet.

Clicking in the creative inventory menu is quite different from non-creative inventory management. Picking up an item with the mouse actually deletes the item from the server, and placing an item into a slot or dropping it out of the inventory actually tells the server to create the item from scratch. (This can be verified by clicking an item that you don't mind deleting, then severing the connection to the server; the item will be nowhere to be found when you log back in.) As a result of this implementation strategy, the "Destroy Item" slot is just a client-side implementation detail that means "I don't intend to recreate this item.". Additionally, the long listings of items (by category, etc.) are a client-side interface for choosing which item to create. Picking up an item from such listings sends no packets to the server; only when you put it somewhere does it tell the server to create the item in that location.

This action can be described as "set inventory slot". Picking up an item sets the slot to item ID -1. Placing an item into an inventory slot sets the slot to the specified item. Dropping an item (by clicking outside the window) effectively sets slot -1 to the specified item, which causes the server to spawn the item entity, etc.. All other inventory slots are numbered the same as the non-creative inventory (including slots for the 2x2 crafting menu, even though they aren't visible in the vanilla client).

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x2B Play Server Slot Short Inventory slot.
Clicked Item Slot

Program Jigsaw Block

Sent when Done is pressed on the Jigsaw Block interface.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x2C Play Server Location Position Block entity location
Name Identifier
Target Identifier
Pool Identifier
Final state String (32767) "Turns into" on the GUI, final_state in NBT.
Joint type String rollable if the attached piece can be rotated, else aligned.

Program Structure Block

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x2D Play Server
Location Position Block entity location.
Action VarInt Enum An additional action to perform beyond simply saving the given data; see below.
Mode VarInt Enum One of SAVE (0), LOAD (1), CORNER (2), DATA (3).
Name String (32767)
Offset X Byte Between -48 and 48.
Offset Y Byte Between -48 and 48.
Offset Z Byte Between -48 and 48.
Size X Byte Between 0 and 48.
Size Y Byte Between 0 and 48.
Size Z Byte Between 0 and 48.
Mirror VarInt Enum One of NONE (0), LEFT_RIGHT (1), FRONT_BACK (2).
Rotation VarInt Enum One of NONE (0), CLOCKWISE_90 (1), CLOCKWISE_180 (2), COUNTERCLOCKWISE_90 (3).
Metadata String (128)
Integrity Float Between 0 and 1.
Seed VarLong
Flags Byte 0x01: Ignore entities; 0x02: Show air; 0x04: Show bounding box.

Possible actions:

  • 0 - Update data
  • 1 - Save the structure
  • 2 - Load the structure
  • 3 - Detect size

The Notchian client uses update data to indicate no special action should be taken (i.e. the done button).

Update Sign

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

The server only accepts this packet after Open Sign Editor, otherwise this packet is silently ignored.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x2E Play Server Location Position Block Coordinates.
Is Front Text Boolean Whether the updated text is in front or on the back of the sign
Line 1 String (384) First line of text in the sign.
Line 2 String (384) Second line of text in the sign.
Line 3 String (384) Third line of text in the sign.
Line 4 String (384) Fourth line of text in the sign.

Swing Arm

Sent when the player's arm swings.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x2F Play Server Hand VarInt Enum Hand used for the animation. 0: main hand, 1: off hand.

Teleport To Entity

Teleports the player to the given entity. The player must be in spectator mode.

The Notchian client only uses this to teleport to players, but it appears to accept any type of entity. The entity does not need to be in the same dimension as the player; if necessary, the player will be respawned in the right world. If the given entity cannot be found (or isn't loaded), this packet will be ignored. It will also be ignored if the player attempts to teleport to themselves.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x30 Play Server Target Player UUID UUID of the player to teleport to (can also be an entity UUID).

Use Item On

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x31 Play Server Hand VarInt Enum The hand from which the block is placed; 0: main hand, 1: off hand.
Location Position Block position.
Face VarInt Enum The face on which the block is placed (as documented at Player Action).
Cursor Position X Float The position of the crosshair on the block, from 0 to 1 increasing from west to east.
Cursor Position Y Float The position of the crosshair on the block, from 0 to 1 increasing from bottom to top.
Cursor Position Z Float The position of the crosshair on the block, from 0 to 1 increasing from north to south.
Inside block Boolean True when the player's head is inside of a block.
Sequence VarInt

Upon placing a block, this packet is sent once.

The Cursor Position X/Y/Z fields (also known as in-block coordinates) are calculated using raytracing. The unit corresponds to sixteen pixels in the default resource pack. For example, let's say a slab is being placed against the south face of a full block. The Cursor Position X will be higher if the player was pointing near the right (east) edge of the face, lower if pointing near the left. The Cursor Position Y will be used to determine whether it will appear as a bottom slab (values 0.0–0.5) or as a top slab (values 0.5-1.0). The Cursor Position Z should be 1.0 since the player was looking at the southernmost part of the block.

Inside block is true when a player's head (specifically eyes) are inside of a block's collision. In 1.13 and later versions, collision is rather complicated and individual blocks can have multiple collision boxes. For instance, a ring of vines has a non-colliding hole in the middle. This value is only true when the player is directly in the box. In practice, though, this value is only used by scaffolding to place in front of the player when sneaking inside of it (other blocks will place behind when you intersect with them -- try with glass for instance).

Use Item

Sent when pressing the Use Item key (default: right click) with an item in hand.

Packet ID State Bound To Field Name Field Type Notes
0x32 Play Server Hand VarInt Enum Hand used for the animation. 0: main hand, 1: off hand.
Sequence VarInt
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