AnvilWatch

AnvilWatch is a lightweight Minecraft moderation plugin that monitors and controls item renaming through anvils. Designed for server administrators, it ensures that all rename actions are tracked and that inappropriate names are blocked automatically based on a configurable banned word list.

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<i>Please join the Discord if you have questions!</i>

Features

• Logs all item renames done through anvils to a log file
• Blocks item names that contain banned words (case-insensitive)
• Alerts all online admins with the correct permission when a rename occurs
• Supports permission-based bypass for trusted users
• Provides a set of admin commands to manage banned words and plugin behavior
• Live reloading of banned word list without restarting the server
• Advanced Filtering: Supports Regular Expressions (Regex), Homoglyph normalization, and Leet-speak detection.
• Alerts all online admins with the correct permission when a rename occurs.

Why Use AnvilWatch?

Players renaming items with offensive, inappropriate, or disruptive names is a common issue on Minecraft servers. AnvilWatch provides a simple and effective way to:

• Automatically prevent these renames using a customizable word filter
• Keep a detailed log of all rename events for moderation and accountability
• Notify staff in real time when rename attempts occur
• Manage filters and settings easily in-game using commands

Regex & Advanced Filtering

AnvilWatch supports powerful Regular Expressions (Regex) for advanced moderation. Each entry in your BannedWords.txt is treated as a regex pattern, allowing you to block entire families of words or specific character patterns.

• Case-Insensitive: All checks are automatically case-insensitive.
• Pattern Matching: Use regex to catch variations. For example, bad.* will block "badword", "badstuff", and "badlink".
• Character Sets: Use b[a4]dw[o0]rd to catch leet-speak variations like "b4dw0rd".
• Normalizations: The plugin automatically converts homoglyphs (look-alike characters from other alphabets) and leet-speak back to standard text before checking your filters, preventing simple bypasses.

Commands

Command	Description
/anvilwatch help	Displays a list of available commands
/anvilwatch reload	Reloads config.yml and the banned word list from BannedWords.txt
/anvilwatch add <word>	Adds a word to the banned word list
/anvilwatch remove <word>	Removes a word from the banned word list
/anvilwatch log <on/off>	Toggles in-game rename log messages for the user and saves the setting across restarts
/anvilwatch check <text>	Checks text against the current banned word list and reports a matching pattern when blocked
/anvilwatch recent [page]	Shows the 10 most recent successful and blocked rename entries together, with clickable pagination

Alias: /anw
Usage: /anvilwatch <help|reload|add|remove|log|check|recent> <args>

Permissions

Permission	Description	Default
anvilwatch.admin	Receive rename alerts and use plugin management commands	op
anvilwatch.bypass	Allows renaming items without word filter restrictions	false

Configuration

• Banned Word List: Managed in the BannedWords.txt file located in the plugin folder. Each non-comment line is treated as a case-insensitive Java regular expression.
• Configuration File: config.yml is generated in the plugin folder and controls player warnings, administrator notifications, notification display modes, log locations, and blocked-attempt logging.
• Messages: Configurable messages use MiniMessage formatting. Available placeholders are <player>, <item>, <old>, and <new>.
• Player Warning: messages.player-blocked controls the message shown when a player's rename attempt is blocked.
• Admin Messages: messages.admin-rename controls successful-rename notifications, while messages.admin-blocked controls blocked-attempt notifications.
• Notification Display: messages.admin-display accepts CHAT, ACTION_BAR, or BOTH.
• Successful Rename Log: logging.rename-file controls the successful-rename log location. It defaults to logs/anvil_renames.log.
• Blocked Attempt Log: logging.blocked-file controls the blocked-attempt log location. It defaults to logs/blocked_renames.log.
• Blocked Attempt Logging: logging.log-blocked-attempts controls whether blocked attempts are written to the blocked log and defaults to true.
• Log Paths: Relative paths are resolved inside the AnvilWatch plugin folder. Absolute paths are also supported, and missing parent directories are created automatically.
• Persistent Notifications: /anvilwatch log off preferences are stored in the generated data.yml file and survive server restarts.
• Historical Logs: Existing log files are preserved and new entries are appended.
• No server restart required: Changes to the configuration and banned word list can be applied using /anvilwatch reload.

A default config.yml looks like this:

messages:
  player-blocked: "<red>You cannot use that word in item names.</red>"
  admin-rename: "<yellow><player></yellow> renamed <aqua><item></aqua> from '<red><old></red>' to '<green><new></green>'"
  admin-blocked: "<yellow><player></yellow> attempted to use a blocked name on <aqua><item></aqua>: '<red><new></red>'"
  admin-display: CHAT

logging:
  rename-file: "logs/anvil_renames.log"
  blocked-file: "logs/blocked_renames.log"
  log-blocked-attempts: true

Compatibility

• Minecraft Version: 26.2
• API Version: 26.2
• Java Version: 25
• Dependencies: None

Getting Started

1. Drop the plugin JAR into your server's plugins/ folder.
2. Start the server to generate config.yml, BannedWords.txt, the log directory, and the separate log files.
3. Review and edit config.yml to customize messages, notification display, and logging.
4. Add banned words either manually to BannedWords.txt or in-game using /anvilwatch add <word>.
5. Assign the anvilwatch.admin permission to trusted staff.
6. Use /anvilwatch check <text> to verify how the current filter handles a word or phrase.
7. Use /anvilwatch recent to review successful and blocked rename activity.
8. Monitor the log files and in-game alerts as players rename items.