skTrace

Find out where your server's Skript time actually goes

skTrace is a profiler built for Skript. It measures your triggers, functions, events, loops and variable writes while the server runs, then turns that into an interactive HTML report you can open in a browser or share with one link.

/sktrace start, let the lag happen, /sktrace report. You get a link.

!Description

Server timings tell you Skript is expensive. They do not tell you which script, which trigger, or which line. skTrace does, because it hooks Skript's own trigger graph rather than sampling the JVM from outside.

Inside a report:

• Per-trigger timing. Calls, total, average and worst single call for every trigger, sorted so the expensive ones are at the top.
• Per-function timing. Functions get their own table, so cost hidden inside whatever called them stops being invisible.
• Line-level hotspots. Optional, off by default. Turn it on and the report highlights the exact statements eating the time, in a source viewer with a timing column.
• A tick chart against the 50ms budget. Drag to select any range and the tables rebuild for just that window. The worst tick gets its own breakdown.
• Time by script. Which file is responsible, at a glance.
• Variable churn. How many global variables were created, updated and deleted, which ones were written most, and a writes per tick sparkline. It also detects Skript's periodic full rewrite of variables.csv and draws it on the tick chart, so you can see when a save lines up with a spike.
• A live loop view. /sktrace loops shows which loops are running right now, their iteration count and how fast it is climbing. A background watchdog catches a truly frozen no-delay loop and logs the exact script:line to console, which is the only place still working during a freeze.

Missed the spike?

Turn on the rolling buffer and skTrace profiles continuously in the background. When something spikes, /sktrace clip snapshots the last 60 seconds (configurable) into a report, with no /sktrace start beforehand. Overhead is the same as a normal capture, and memory is roughly 20KB per trigger.

Built to be safe on a live server

Per-trigger, per-function and per-event timing are passive wrappers with negligible overhead, fully removed when profiling stops. Variable tracking observes Skript's existing save path and never reads or scans your variables.csv, so a huge file costs nothing. Loop watching only reads the iteration counter Skript already keeps.

The one feature that rewrites anything, line-level-profiling, is off by default and clearly labelled experimental. Everything else in the report works without it.

Commands

/sktrace start / stop	Begin and end a capture
/sktrace status	Live summary in chat, hottest triggers first
/sktrace report	Write the report and get a shareable link
/sktrace clip	Snapshot the last N seconds from the rolling buffer
/sktrace loops	Live view of running loops
/sktrace rolling on|off	Toggle the always-on buffer
/sktrace reset	Clear collected stats

Aliased to /skt, permission sktrace.use (op by default).

Flags on report and clip: --no-upload keeps it local, --include-files embeds script source, --variable-values lists what each save compacted, --show-secrets unmasks option values (option secrets are masked by default).

Reports and privacy

Every report is written to plugins/Sktrace/reports/ first. It is then uploaded to sktrace.kal.pe for a short share link, and shared links expire after 24 hours. The service stores only the report's JSON data, never raw uploaded HTML, and re-renders each report from the same renderer shipped in the plugin.

Do not want that? Set upload-endpoint to an empty string, or pass --no-upload. Reports are still written locally, and the site can open a .json file you drop into it. You can also self-host the worker.

Option values are masked in reports unless you explicitly ask for them, so a token in an option does not end up in a link you paste in Discord.

Requirements

Paper or Spigot 1.20+, Skript 2.9 or newer, Java 21. Works alongside spark, which profiles the JVM. skTrace profiles Skript.

skTrace is an independent project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or part of the SkriptLang team or the Skript project.

!Development

Open source under Apache-2.0 at github.com/KalpeGames/skTrace. Bug reports and pull requests welcome, and the changelog for every release lives in the repo.

The report renderer (report.css, report.app.js, report.shell.html) ships inside the plugin as the single source of truth, so a locally written report and a shared one look identical. The share service is a small Cloudflare Worker kept in its own repository, and you are free to deploy your own and point upload-endpoint at it.

Anonymous usage metrics go through bStats: server count, server software and Java version, plus whether the rolling buffer, line-level profiling and variable tracking are enabled. No personal or server-identifying data. Set metrics: false to opt out, or opt every bStats plugin out at once in plugins/bStats/config.yml.

An update notifier checks Modrinth on startup and every few hours after. When a newer release is out, operators get a clickable notice on join and it is logged once to console. It never downloads or installs anything, and update-checker: false turns it off.

!Licence

Apache License 2.0. Use it, modify it, ship it, including commercially. Keep the notice and state your changes.

Copyright © 2026 KALPE. Full licence