Keyboard shortcuts

Press ← or → to navigate between chapters

Press S or / to search in the book

Press ? to show this help

Press Esc to hide this help

World layouts

Three server families share the .mca format but not the directory layout. Pass the same path on every run:

  • Vanilla: one world folder (region/, DIM-1/, DIM1/, and since 26.1 dimensions/minecraft/<name>/).
  • Bukkit-family (Bukkit/Spigot/Paper/Purpur, pre-26.1 layout): the server root, holding <base>/, <base>_nether/DIM-1/, and <base>_the_end/DIM1/, where base is the level-name (world by default). Paper 26.1+ migrates to the vanilla layout.
  • Plugin worlds (Multiverse et al.): arbitrary folders, detected by their contents.

The full namespace rules live in ARCHITECTURE.md (“World Layouts”). Two practical consequences: custom-dimension folders are content-hashed, so renaming one orphans its history; and rollback restores moved folders through discovered siblings when possible, failing loudly (UnknownRegionPath) rather than writing somewhere wrong.