Manual Farming¶

Manual Farming is an AI mode that takes over the villager’s movement to farm in a defined area.

It is intended to solve common vanilla/modded issues (for example modded crops not being picked up reliably) by:

scanning for work to do,
moving precisely to targets,
and following player-configured rules.

Enabling manual farming¶

Recruit the villager.
Ensure it is a Farmer.
Ensure it has a workstation.
Configure the rules in Farming Settings - Manual Farming.
Toggle Manual Farming from the Farming command buttons (button M).

Manual farming is exclusive with movement modes like idle/patrol/follow: enabling it will replace the active movement mode, and disabling it restores the previous mode.

Work area¶

Manual farming works around a workstation position.

By default, the mod uses the villager’s vanilla job site if it has one.
You can also register a workstation manually (any block) from the Manual Farming settings tab.

Range + shape¶

The villager operates inside a range around the workstation.
Shape can be circular or square.

The server also enforces a maximum range based on the villager’s Ranger stat.

Rules (what to plant/harvest)¶

Manual farming uses item IDs (not block IDs) so it works for modded items.

Planting rules: items the villager is allowed to place.
Harvest rules: items that identify crops the villager should harvest.

Nether wart support¶

Nether wart is planted on soul sand.
Most other crops are planted on farmland.

Pickup rules¶

Pickup rules control which dropped items the villager will pick up while manual farming.

If Pickup rules are empty: it picks up all items.
If Pickup rules contain items: it picks up only those items.

Pickup is always limited to the villager’s work area.

Optional features¶

Use bonemeal¶

If enabled, the villager will use bonemeal on crops inside the work area.

Important: the villager must actually have bonemeal available (typically via your withdraw rules).

Toss other items¶

If enabled, the villager will periodically drop items that are not part of its configured farming + logistics lists.

Till soil¶

If enabled, the villager will convert dirt/grass -> farmland when it can.

Requires a hoe equipped.
This is the lowest priority action, and it respects timeout/retry so it won’t get stuck.

Time of day¶

Manual farming only actively works during a configurable daytime window, similar to vanilla behavior.

The Motivation stat can expand or shrink this work window.

XP + leveling¶

Server owners can configure villager XP gain from planting.

XP from planting is awarded while the villager is farming in Neutral mode (vanilla AI).
Manual farming still counts actions in the villager history, but planting XP is intended as a vanilla-farming reward.

Modded tool compatibility (Fortune hoes, etc)¶

When manual farming harvests a crop, it breaks the block using a server-side “fake player” action.

This is done so that:

Fortune / special harvest logic can apply,
modded tools that rely on player harvest hooks still work.

The fake player is not a real visible player entity (it is not added to the player list).

Technical details

Manual farming scans every ~10 ticks (about twice per second).
Action priority inside manual farming is: bonemeal -> pickup -> plant -> harvest -> till -> roam.
The overall system prioritizes storage runs first when deposit/withdraw rules trigger.