PaperMC / PaperMC/Paper

Add ability to change time (date) format in command blocks

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status: needs triage
Dominant language
Java
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Description

Is your feature request related to a problem?

It's only for our convenience.

Currently command output in command blocks are prefixed only by local system time.
I want to add a date to this prefix, i.e. [2025-11-02 11:00:01] Example output.

There's no way to do that even via Reflection API, because instance of DateTimeFormatter TIME_FORMAT in BaseCommandBlock.CloseableCommandBlockSource isn't mutable anymore (in 1.21.8, SimpleDateFormat was used for this purpose and it was possible to change its pattern).

Describe the solution you'd like.

Add command-block-time-pattern to the server per-world configuration.

Describe alternatives you've considered.

Add an internal method to change value of the TIME_FORMAT field via Reflection API and make it non-final.

Other

No response

Contributor guide

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First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start at BaseCommandBlock.CloseableCommandBlockSource and inspect how the TIME_FORMAT value is used for command-block output. Trace the per-world configuration handling needed for command-block-time-pattern, then verify that the configured pattern changes the time prefix while preserving the existing output format.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
java
Domain
backend
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

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