Items, Tags & Mods

Four fields gate items, from one id to an entire mod. They all behave the same way once an item matches — the difference is only how wide the net is.

{
  "items": ["minecraft:iron_ingot"],
  "tags": ["c:ores/iron"],
  "mods": ["create"],
  "mod_exceptions": ["create:andesite_alloy"]
}

In the editor

Four tabs of their own on a stage: Items, Tags, Mods and Exceptions. Each has a search bar over the live registry, a button to pick straight out of your own inventory, and a multi-select mode with a Selected tab for adding many at once.

Everything you do to an entry that is already in the list is a right-click. The context menu that opens holds:

Edit NBT	NBT and data component criteria.
Lock Actions	Narrow the entry to specific interactions.
Text Override	This entry's own hidden-display texts.
Copy ID	The registry id, onto the clipboard.
Remove	Takes it out of the stage.

Which of them appear depends on the tab — a mod entry has no NBT to edit — and an installed addon can add its own further down, above Copy ID and Remove.

What "locked" means

By default a matched item is gated for everything: using it, attacking with it, wearing it, picking it up, placing it, breaking blocks with it, opening its GUI, appearing in loot, showing its recipes, and trading it. Narrowing that down to a single interaction is what unlock_actions is for.

A locked block is a slightly bigger deal than a locked item, because it is already in the world:

• Breaking it is 20× slower and it drops nothing (lockedBlockBreakSpeedMultiplier).
• Its GUI will not open — a chest, a furnace, a machine.
• Armour stands and item frames holding a locked item cannot be interacted with or broken either.

Each of those is a switch in gameplay.toml, and each has a per-player twin under [individual_stages].

Items

Item ids, either plain or as objects:

"items": [
  "minecraft:diamond_pickaxe",
  {
    "id": "minecraft:diamond_sword",
    "unlock_actions": ["pickup", "equip"]
  }
]

The object form takes nbt / components criteria, unlock_actions, and per-entry name_text / tooltip_text overrides for hidden display.

Tags

Item tags gate every member at once. Entries take the same object form as items:

"tags": [
  "c:ores/iron",
  {
    "id": "c:ingots/iron",
    "unlock_actions": ["pickup"]
  }
]

A tag is resolved live, so items another mod adds to c:ores/iron later are gated too, without the stage file changing. That is usually the point — and occasionally the surprise, when a newly installed mod quietly widens a lock nobody edited.

note

Tag entries carrying an NBT criterion are skipped wherever no actual item stack exists to match against — a loot-table check without context, for instance. Plain tag entries are unaffected. → NBT & Data Components

Mods

A mod id gates every item that mod registers:

"mods": ["mekanism"]

This is the widest net there is, and it is resolved from the registry rather than from a list, so it also covers items added by a later update of that mod.

Mod exceptions

mod_exceptions carves items back out of a mods lock — the usual shape of "gate the whole tech mod, but leave the starter component craftable so players can get in at all".

{
  "mods": ["create"],
  "mod_exceptions": [
    "create:andesite_alloy",
    { "id": "create:wrench", "nbt": { "components": { "minecraft:damage": 0 } } }
  ]
}

Exceptions accept the same NBT criteria as items. They only undo a mods lock — an item listed explicitly in items stays locked no matter what mod_exceptions says, and an exception is the one category that never takes part in a dual-phase lock, because it carves holes rather than locking.

Enchantments

There is no enchantment field. An enchantment is gated by writing an items entry for minecraft:enchanted_book whose NBT carries StoredEnchantments — and the mod then reads that same entry when deciding whether an anvil or an enchanting table may apply the enchantment at all:

"items": [
  {
    "id": "minecraft:enchanted_book",
    "nbt": {
      "StoredEnchantments": [
        { "id": "minecraft:mending" },
        { "id": "minecraft:sharpness", "lvl": "4-5" },
        { "id": "minecraft:fortune", "lvl": 3 }
      ]
    }
  }
]

lvl decides how much of the enchantment is caught:

lvl	Gated
left out	every level
a number — 3	that exact level
a range string — "4-5"	that range, inclusive

So the entry above gates Mending entirely, Sharpness only at IV and V, and Fortune only at III. Sharpness III stays applicable.

Two details this depends on: the item id has to be exactly minecraft:enchanted_book, and the criterion has to sit under the legacy StoredEnchantments key rather than under components — the enchantment check reads that one shape and nothing else. The switch for whether anvils and enchanting tables honour it is lockEnchanting in gameplay.toml, with a per-player twin under [individual_stages].

Global or individual?

Both. All four fields work in either scope — but what they do differs sharply: a global stage removes the recipe from the game, while an individual stage leaves the recipe alone and refuses to let the item reach that player's inventory. That difference catches almost everybody once. → Global vs Individual

See also

• Unlock Actions — gate one interaction instead of all of them.
• NBT & Data Components — gate only the items that match a criterion.
• Recipes — gating the recipe rather than the item.
• Fluids — one entry for every bucket and tank that holds a fluid.
• Hidden Display — what locked players see instead.