Server Rules

A server-side Fabric mod that forces new players to read and accept a set of server rules — presented in a chest GUI powered by the Inventory Menu mod — before they can interact with the world.

• Mod ID: server-rules
• Environment: server-only (clients do not need to install anything)
• Minecraft: 26.1.1
• Fabric Loader: >=0.19.2 · Fabric API: >=0.145.4+26.1.1 · Java: >=25
• License: MIT

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Features

• Chest GUI on first join with a three-row layout: chat rules, server rules, gameplay rules, plus Accept and Decline player-head buttons that run /rules accept and /rules decline when clicked.
• Full interaction lockdown until the rules are accepted: blocked movement, chat, commands (except the whitelisted rules commands), block breaking, block placing, block/entity interaction, and item use. Enforced with a combination of Slowness 255, Jump Boost 128, Blindness, and Fabric API interaction callbacks.
• Accept timeout with a configurable kick message (defaults to 120 seconds).
• /rules-view command for already-accepted players to re-read the rules at any time without getting frozen.
• /rules reload [player] admin command that clears stored acceptances and re-opens the GUI on every affected online player immediately.
• Generates its own Inventory Menu datapack into <world>/datapacks/Server Rules/ on startup, auto-enables it via server.reloadResources(...), and refreshes pack.mcmeta on every boot so Minecraft version bumps don't leave the pack stranded on DataPacks.Disabled.
• Legacy-file detection: if an older install wrote a rules.json without the accept/decline buttons, the file is auto-upgraded on next start. Admins can opt out by creating an empty .customized marker file next to rules.json.

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Installation

1. Install Fabric Loader 0.19.2+ on your server.
2. Drop the following jars into the server's mods/ folder:
   • Fabric API (0.145.4+26.1.1 or newer)
   • Inventory Menu (1.1.0 or newer)
   • server-rules-<version>.jar
3. Start the server once. The mod will:
   • Create config/serverrules/config.json and rules-accepted.txt.
   • Generate <world>/datapacks/Server Rules/ with a valid pack.mcmeta (min_format: [94, 0], max_format: [101, 1]) and the default menu JSON containing the accept/decline buttons.
   • Auto-enable the datapack via a resource reload.

No client-side install is required — everything runs on the server.

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In-Game Flow

1. Player joins. If their UUID is in rules-accepted.txt, nothing happens.
2. If not, they are marked pending. Slowness / Jump Boost / Blindness are applied immediately so the screen fades to black and the player can't move.
3. After a 3-second smoothing delay the chest GUI opens via Inventory Menu.
4. The player reads the rules and clicks the Accept (player head of alphain) or Decline (player head of _3RACHA) button.
   • Accept → status effects cleared, GUI closed, UUID written to rules-accepted.txt, welcome message sent.
   • Decline → kicked with the configured message.
   • Timeout (default 120 s) → kicked with the timeout message.
5. Future joins by the same player skip the whole flow.

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Commands

Command	Who	Effect
/rules	everyone	Re-opens the GUI. Restricted players get the full freeze + timeout flow; accepted players get a view-only open.
/rules accept	pending player	Marks the player as having accepted, clears the freeze effects, closes the GUI, saves state.
/rules decline	pending player	Kicks the player with the configured decline message.
/rules view / /rules-view	everyone	Opens the menu in view-only mode (no freeze effects).
/rules reload	op level 3	Clears all stored acceptances. Every online player is re-frozen and shown the GUI.
/rules reload <player>	op level 3	Clears one player's acceptance. If they're online, re-freezes them and re-opens the GUI immediately.

While pending, a player may only run /rules, /rules accept, /rules decline, and /help.

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Configuration

config/serverrules/config.json

Created automatically on first start with these defaults:

{
  "acceptTimeoutSeconds": 120,
  "timeoutKickMessage": "You did not accept the server rules in time.",
  "declineKickMessage": "You must accept the server rules to play on this server.",
  "restrictionMessage": "§cYou must accept the server rules before you can do this. Use §e/rules§c to view them."
}

Set acceptTimeoutSeconds to 0 or a negative number to disable the kick timer entirely.

<world>/datapacks/Server Rules/data/server_rules/menu/rules.json

This is the GUI itself — an Inventory Menu schema with name, rows, and an items array. Edit this file to change the menu contents, titles, and colors. Because the mod auto-upgrades legacy installs that lack the accept/decline buttons, create an empty .customized file next to rules.json to opt out of further auto-upgrades if you hand-edit the menu.

config/serverrules/rules-accepted.txt

Plain-text ledger of every player who has accepted the rules, one per line in the format uuid:username:

b1d2c3e4-0000-0000-0000-000000000000:Steve
a9f8e7d6-0000-0000-0000-000000000000:Alex

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Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
Unterminated object … $.pack.max_format on /reload	A truncated pack.mcmeta left over from a crash or the pre-release 1.0.0 build.	Restart the server. DatapackGenerator rewrites pack.mcmeta on startup, and ServerRules#ensureDatapackEnabled re-enables the pack via reloadResources.
Pack shown in DataPacks.Disabled inside level.dat_old	World previously loaded a pack.mcmeta that Minecraft rejected (e.g. pack_format: 101.1 float).	Restart — the mod will re-enable file/Server Rules automatically.
Clicking Accept/Decline does nothing	as_player: true is missing on the action, meaning the command runs as the server console and fails ctx.getSource().getPlayerOrException(). Shouldn't happen on a clean install — most likely you have a legacy rules.json.	Delete rules.json (or remove the .customized marker if present) and restart so the default is regenerated.
GUI opens but the player can still move around	Blindness was only applied for 40 ticks in older builds.	Upgrade to the current build; all three freeze effects now last 10 minutes.

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Documentation

Full technical reference (architecture, lifecycle, file layout, extension points): see docs/OUTPUT.md.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.