Recipe API

Recipes are a way to define a way to craft a particular item. They are defined by a plugin or datapack, however we are only going to cover the plugin side of things here.

ShapedRecipe

A shaped recipe is a recipe that requires a specific pattern of items in the crafting grid to craft an item. These are created using a pattern string and a map of characters to items. The pattern strings are 3, 3-character strings that represent the rows of the crafting grid. They can be created as follows:

public class TestPlugin extends JavaPlugin {
    @Override
    public void onEnable() {
        NamespacedKey key = new NamespacedKey(this, "WarriorSword");
        ItemStack item = new ItemStack(Material.DIAMOND_SWORD);

        ShapedRecipe recipe = new ShapedRecipe(key, item);
        recipe.shape(" A ", "AAA", " B ");
        recipe.setIngredient('A', Material.DIAMOND);
        recipe.setIngredient('B', Material.STICK);

        getServer().addRecipe(recipe);
    }
}

This recipe would require a diamond sword to be crafted with a diamond in the top row, a stick in the middle row, and a diamond in the bottom row. The diamond sword would be in the middle column of the bottom row. The result would look like this in the crafting grid:

 A
AAA
 B

info

You do not need to register the recipe within your plugin's onEnable method, You can register it at any time. However, if you do not register it after the plugin has been enabled and there are players online, you will need to either resend all the recipes to the players or use the boolean parameter in the addRecipe method to update all players with the new recipe.

warning

You cannot use Air as a material in a shaped recipe, this will cause an error.

ShapelessRecipe

A shapeless recipe is a recipe that requires a specific number of items in the crafting grid to craft an item. These are created using a list of items. They can be created as follows:

public class TestPlugin extends JavaPlugin {
    @Override
    public void onEnable() {
        NamespacedKey key = new NamespacedKey(this, "WarriorSword");
        ItemStack item = new ItemStack(Material.DIAMOND_SWORD);

        ShapelessRecipe recipe = new ShapelessRecipe(key, item);
        recipe.addIngredient(3, Material.DIAMOND);
        recipe.addIngredient(2, Material.STICK);

        getServer().addRecipe(recipe);
    }
}

This recipe declares that you simply need 3 diamonds and 2 sticks to craft the item, without any specific orientation of the cross pattern in the crafting grid. This could be crafted in any of the following ways:

  DSS   |   SDS   |   S D
  D     |   D     |   D
  D     |   D     |   D S

And, any other composition of the 5 items.