Version: 6.0.x

Entities & Spawns

The entities object holds three independent lists. They answer three different questions, and since 6.0 none of them implies another:

{
  "entities": {
    "attacklock": ["minecraft:zombie"],
    "interactionlock": ["minecraft:villager"],
    "spawnlock": ["minecraft:ghast"]
  }
}

List	Question	Scope
`attacklock`	May the player hit it?	global + individual
`interactionlock`	May the player breed, mount, shear, name it?	global + individual
`spawnlock`	May it appear at all?	global only

In the editor

The three lists are three tabs of their own: Attack, Interaction and Spawn. The entity pickers work like the item picker, multi-select included.

A spawn entry is a rule rather than a tick. Right-click it and pick SpawnControl for the full spawn dialog — phase at the top, then Sources, Location, Time & Weather and Extra biomes as tabs, with a line underneath spelling the finished rule out in words.

An interaction entry right-clicks to Interaction Actions for its action list and Item Filter for the held-item condition.

`attacklock`

A flat list of entity ids. While the stage is locked, every attack the player makes against one is cancelled.

"attacklock": ["minecraft:blaze", "minecraft:wither_skeleton"]

The mob is otherwise completely normal: it spawns, it moves, it fights back. This is the individual-friendly way to gate combat progression, because there is always a player doing the attacking.

The feedback is configured under [mob_lock], and the wording under mobUnknown in [lock_messages].

`interactionlock`

Everything that is not combat: naming, leashing, shearing, milking, breeding, trading, mounting, equipping armour and saddles. Attacking and spawning are untouched.

An entry is either a plain entity id — which blocks every recognised interaction — or an object:

"interactionlock": [
  "minecraft:villager",
  {
    "id": "minecraft:horse",
    "unlock_actions": ["mount"],
    "lock_items": ["minecraft:saddle"]
  }
]

Field	Type	What it does
`unlock_actions`	Strings	Actions that stay free; everything else stays blocked. Recognised: `breed`, `mount`, `trade`, `leash`, `shear`, `milk`, `name`, `equip`, `other`.
`lock_items`	Strings / Objects	A held-item filter. The lock only applies while the player holds one of these — item ids, `#tag` entries, or `{ "id": …, "nbt": {…} }` objects. Omitted means the lock applies whatever is held, empty hand included.

In the example, villagers cannot be interacted with at all. Horses can be mounted freely but not saddled, bred or leashed — and only while a saddle is actually in hand.

unlock_actions here works the same way round as it does for items: the list is what stays available.

`spawnlock`

A spawn rule: which sources it covers, when it applies, and under what conditions the entity may still appear. Global stages only — a spawn does not know who it is appearing for, and an individual lock needs a concrete player.

Changed in 6.0: a spawn lock no longer implies an attack lock

Until 6.0.0, gating an entity's spawning also stopped players hitting it. That coupling is gone entirely — whether a creature may be hit is a separate question from whether it may appear, and a zombie out of a spawner or an egg is a perfectly ordinary zombie.

A stage that relied on the implication now leaves the creature attackable. List it in attacklock as well if that is what you wanted.

The simple form is a plain entity id, which blocks every source everywhere:

"spawnlock": ["minecraft:skeleton"]

Everything an existing pack already wrote keeps working and is written back unchanged. A rule the old format can express — unlock_sources, unlock_dimensions — is saved in exactly that form, so stage files that never touch the new options stay byte-identical.

Field	Meaning
`id`	The entity.
`unlock_sources`	Sources that are not blocked; everything else is. Recognised: `natural`, `spawner`, `structure`, `breeding`, `summon`, `spawn_egg`. Absent means every source is blocked.
`phase`	`"while_locked"` (default) — the rule applies until the stage opens. `"after_unlock"` — it applies only once the stage is open, which is how you make something start appearing rather than stop.
`conditions`	Where and when the entity may still spawn. Every slot is optional; all present slots have to hold.
`extra_biomes`	Biomes the entity additionally spawns in.
`unlock_dimensions`	The pre-6.0 spelling of an "only in these dimensions" condition. Still read; new rules write `conditions.dimensions` instead.

`conditions`

"spawnlock": [
  {
    "id": "minecraft:phantom",
    "conditions": {
      "dimensions": { "mode": "only", "ids": ["minecraft:overworld"] },
      "biomes":     { "mode": "exclude", "ids": ["#minecraft:is_ocean"] },
      "sky": "visible",
      "y": { "min": 60, "max": 180 },
      "time": "night",
      "light": { "min": 0, "max": 7 },
      "weather": "clear",
      "moon_phases": [0, 4]
    }
  }
]

Slot	Values
`dimensions`, `biomes`	`mode` is `"only"` or `"exclude"`; `ids` are ids, and biomes also accept `#tag` entries.
`sky`	`"visible"` or `"hidden"` — whether the spawn position can see the sky.
`y`	`{ "min", "max" }`, inclusive. A reversed pair is swapped rather than rejected.
`time`	`"day"` or `"night"`.
`light`	`{ "min", "max" }`, 0–15 inclusive.
`weather`	`"clear"`, `"rain"` or `"thunder"`. A thunderstorm counts as rain as well.
`moon_phases`	A list of phase numbers, 0–7.

`extra_biomes`

The inverse of a lock: biomes the entity spawns in that it otherwise would not.

"extra_biomes": {
  "ids": ["minecraft:desert", "#minecraft:is_badlands"],
  "weight": 30,
  "min_group": 2,
  "max_group": 4,
  "ignore_spawn_rules": false
}

Leaving weight, min_group and max_group out copies the frequency from the biomes the entity already spawns in. ignore_spawn_rules skips the entity's own placement rules — its light level, its surface preference — but not the physical ones: something still needs space and solid ground, and a fish still needs water.

The rest of the rule's conditions apply here too; only the biome condition is set aside, since it would otherwise exclude the very biome being added.

Four limits worth knowing before building around this:

Animals placed during world generation are not added. Chunk generation reads the biome's own list directly. Extra biomes only affect ongoing natural spawning — invisible for monsters, noticeable for animals in land that is already explored.
The Nether and the End report a fixed clock, so a time condition is constant there.
Weather is per world, not per biome. "rain" also matches in a desert while it is raining somewhere else.
Space and ground still count, even with ignore_spawn_rules.

Building spawn rules in the editor

Spawn rules are normally built in the editor's spawn dialog rather than typed: phase at the top, then four tabs — Sources, Location, Time & Weather, Extra biomes — and a line underneath that spells the whole rule out in words. → In-Game Editor

In the editor​

attacklock​

interactionlock​

spawnlock​

conditions​

extra_biomes​

Building spawn rules in the editor​

See also​