Blockwatch

See who changed what, when, and undo it. Blockwatch records block, container, item and entity changes on your Fabric server and lets staff inspect, search, preview and roll them back. It works on a server alone; players or staff who install it on the client also get a full screen with tabs and filters.

What it logs

Tab	Events
Blocks	break, place, change, explosion, burn, fluid placed, farmland trampled
Containers	items put in, items taken out, container broken with contents
Items	dropped, picked up (repeats merged)
Entities	kills, deaths of named or tamed creatures, leashing, bucket catches
Players	join, leave, death, dimension change

Every row stores who (a player, a mob, fire, an explosion or the environment), what, where, in which dimension and when. Block entity data (chest contents, signs, spawners) is stored so a rollback brings it back too.

Inspect, search, rollback, preview

• /bw inspect or the inspector item (/bw wand): click or hit a block or chest to see its history.
• /bw search player:Steve time:2h radius:20 action:block_break and friends. Filters are plain key:value pairs.
• /bw rollback ... and /bw restore ... undo and redo changes, newest first, in batches that do not freeze the server.
• /bw preview ... shows the result only to you as a ghost of the world, then /bw apply commits it or /bw cancel drops it.
• Killed entities are not brought back (a limit of every logging mod).

The screen (client mod, optional)

Install Blockwatch on the client (26.1 and 26.2 builds) and /bw opens a screen with tabs for blocks, containers, items, entities and players, a player box with suggestions, time, radius, dimension and action filters, row selection, one-click teleport to a row, and rollback / restore / preview buttons with a confirmation. Hovering a row outlines the block in the world.

Works without the client mod

Everything above works from chat. Players without the mod get a clickable view: tabs, previous / next page and a teleport link on every row. The 1.20.1, 1.21.1 and 1.21.11 builds currently ship the server side and this chat view only.

Permissions

Blockwatch uses permission nodes (LuckPerms and any mod using the Fabric Permissions API), with operator levels as the fallback when no permission mod is installed.

Node	Allows	Default
blockwatch.view	open the log	op 2
blockwatch.inspect	inspect blocks and use the inspector item	op 2
blockwatch.search	search and browse	op 2
blockwatch.teleport	teleport to a row	op 2
blockwatch.preview	preview rollbacks and restores	op 3
blockwatch.rollback	roll back	op 3
blockwatch.restore	restore (redo)	op 3
blockwatch.purge	delete old records	op 4
blockwatch.unlimited	no radius or age caps on rollbacks	op 4

Without blockwatch.unlimited a rollback is limited to a radius and an age you set in the config (default 64 blocks, 7 days).

Performance

Writes go through a queue on their own thread and are batched into SQLite, so logging never blocks the tick. In our load test 50 000 queued records took about 30 ms on the server thread and were on disk within a few seconds. Rollbacks run a few thousand blocks per tick (configurable). Records older than retentionDays are purged daily.

Configuration

config/blockwatch.json5 (comments allowed):

{
  "categories": { "blocks": true, "containers": true, "items": true, "entities": true, "players": true },
  "recording": true,
  "retentionDays": 60,
  "limitedRadius": 64,
  "limitedDays": 7,
  "rollbackPerTick": 2000,
  "ignoredBlocks": ["minecraft:short_grass"],
  "skipDimensions": [],
  "discordWebhook": "",
  "language": "en_us",
  "extraAliases": []
}

Rollbacks, restores and purges are also written to logs/blockwatch-actions.log and, if you set discordWebhook, posted to Discord.

FAQ

Is it server-only? Yes. The client mod is optional.

Which versions? Fabric for 1.20.1, 1.21.1, 1.21.11, 26.1 and 26.2.

Where is the data? world/blockwatch.db (SQLite). Back it up with the world.

Can I move a world between Minecraft versions? Block data moves fine. Chest and item snapshots are tagged with a format family and a rollback refuses a snapshot from an incompatible family instead of restoring it wrongly.

Does it log creative-mode or command changes? It logs what players, mobs and explosions do through normal gameplay. Changes made by commands such as /fill are not attributed to a player.

Languages? English, Ukrainian, German, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, French and Simplified Chinese (short UI strings for the last six; server messages fall back to English).

Rollbacks change your world. Keep backups.