🔍 DataLens

Real-time data inspector for Minecraft — inspect, edit, compare and export any block, entity or item.

Features • Commands • Permissions • Configuration • API • Building • Project Structure

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Overview

DataLens is a Bukkit plugin that gives server operators and developers a powerful lens into the internal data structures of Minecraft objects. Point at any block, entity or player, and instantly explore its full data tree — PDC tags, attributes, potion effects, enchantments, block states and more — through both a paginated chest GUI and chat commands.

Unlike simple NBT viewers, DataLens provides a complete inspect → edit → validate → diff → export pipeline with automatic rollback on failure, a built-in changelog, and a public API for third-party schema registration.

Supported platforms: Bukkit / Spigot / Paper 1.20.x – 1.21.x · Java 21+

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Features

🔎 Deep Inspection

• Blocks, Entities, Items & Players — inspect any object via raytrace targeting or by player name.
• Full data tree extraction — PDC keys, block states, entity attributes, potion effects, equipment, enchantments, lore, and more are captured into a hierarchical DataNode tree.
• Version-adaptive — pluggable adapter layer auto-detects the server version and loads the appropriate reader/writer (Paper120Adapter, Paper121Adapter).

✏️ Safe In-Place Editing

• Set / Remove any primitive value by dot-notation path (e.g. pdc.myplugin:level).
• Type validation & coercion — raw string inputs are validated against the target node's DataType before committing.
• Atomic rollback — a deep-copy snapshot is taken before every write; if persistence fails the tree is restored automatically.

📊 Diff Engine

• Compare the live data tree against your working copy to see exactly what changed — additions, removals and modifications are displayed with color-coded chat output.

📤 Export

• Dump the complete data tree as JSON (via Jackson) or YAML (via SnakeYAML) directly to chat.

🖥️ Inspector GUI

• 54-slot paginated inventory with navigation breadcrumbs.
• Click into compound/list nodes to drill down; use Back to navigate up.
• Color-coded type indicators, pagination controls, and one-click export.

📝 Changelog

• Every SET and REMOVE operation is logged to plugins/DataLens/changelog.log with timestamps, actor, path, and old/new values.
• Configurable — can be disabled entirely.

🔐 Permission System

• Granular permission nodes (datalens.inspect, datalens.edit, datalens.admin) centralized through PermissionGuard.

🧩 Public API

• Third-party plugins can register schemas for their PDC namespaces to improve labelling and validation.
• Programmatic access to InspectorService and SessionService via DataLensPlugin.getAPI().

⚡ Performance

• Per-player sessions backed by a Caffeine LRU cache with configurable TTL and capacity.
• Read operations are thread-safe; writes enforce main-thread execution.

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Commands

Command	Description	Permission
/inspect	Inspect the block/entity you are looking at (raytrace)	datalens.inspect
/inspect <player>	Inspect a named online player directly	datalens.inspect
/data set <path> <value>	Edit a primitive value at the given path	datalens.edit
/data remove <path>	Delete the node at the given path	datalens.edit
/data export [json|yaml]	Export the inspected data tree to chat	datalens.inspect
/data diff	Show differences between live data and working copy	datalens.inspect

Both commands include context-aware tab completion — paths are autocompleted from the live data tree, and values suggest type-appropriate options.

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Permissions

Node	Description	Default
datalens.inspect	Inspect blocks, entities and items	op
datalens.edit	Edit inspected data values	op
datalens.admin	Full administrative access (inherits inspect + edit)	op

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Configuration

Configuration is stored in plugins/DataLens/config.yml:

debug: false

cache:
  session-ttl-seconds: 60     # Idle timeout for player sessions
  max-sessions: 100            # Maximum concurrent inspection sessions

inspect:
  max-ray-distance: 5.0        # Raytrace distance in blocks for /inspect

changelog:
  enabled: true                # Enable/disable edit logging
  max-entries: 10000           # Maximum changelog entries

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API

Other plugins can interact with DataLens programmatically:

// Obtain the API instance
DataLensAPI api = DataLensPlugin.getAPI();

// Register a schema for your PDC namespace
Schema schema = new Schema("myplugin", List.of(
    new SchemaField("level", DataType.INT, "Player level"),
    new SchemaField("guild", DataType.STRING, "Guild name")
));
api.registerSchema("myplugin", schema);

// Programmatic inspection
InspectorService inspector = api.getInspectorService();
InspectableObject obj = inspector.inspect(someEntity);

// Session management
SessionService sessions = api.getSessionService();
PlayerSession session = sessions.open(player.getUniqueId(), obj);

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Building

Requirements: Java 21+, Gradle 8+

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/Parallax-Development/DataLens.git
cd DataLens

# Build the fat JAR (output: build/libs/DataLens-<version>.jar)
./gradlew clean build

# Run a local Paper test server (requires run-paper plugin)
./gradlew runServer

The build produces a shadow JAR that bundles Jackson, Caffeine and the Adventure platform adapter. Server-provided dependencies (Spigot API, SnakeYAML) are excluded.

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Project Structure

DataLens/
├── build.gradle.kts                  # Build config (Shadow, run-paper)
├── settings.gradle.kts               # Project settings
├── gradle.properties                 # Version & Gradle flags
│
└── src/
    ├── main/
    │   ├── java/dev/darkblade/datalens/
    │   │   ├── DataLensPlugin.java           # Plugin entry point & lifecycle
    │   │   │
    │   │   ├── adapter/
    │   │   │   ├── common/
    │   │   │   │   └── Adapter.java          # Version-agnostic data I/O interface
    │   │   │   └── versioned/
    │   │   │       ├── Paper120Adapter.java   # Paper 1.20.x implementation
    │   │   │       └── Paper121Adapter.java   # Paper 1.21.x implementation
    │   │   │
    │   │   ├── api/
    │   │   │   └── DataLensAPI.java          # Public API surface for third-party plugins
    │   │   │
    │   │   ├── command/
    │   │   │   ├── InspectCommand.java       # /inspect — raytrace & named targeting
    │   │   │   └── DataCommand.java          # /data — set, remove, export, diff
    │   │   │
    │   │   ├── core/
    │   │   │   ├── diff/
    │   │   │   │   └── DiffService.java      # Recursive tree comparison engine
    │   │   │   ├── edit/
    │   │   │   │   ├── EditService.java      # Safe edit pipeline with rollback
    │   │   │   │   ├── PathResolver.java     # Dot-notation path resolution
    │   │   │   │   └── PathSegment.java      # Path segment model (key / index)
    │   │   │   ├── inspect/
    │   │   │   │   └── InspectorService.java # Converts live objects to DataNode trees
    │   │   │   ├── serialize/
    │   │   │   │   └── SerializationService.java  # JSON & YAML import/export
    │   │   │   ├── session/
    │   │   │   │   ├── PlayerSession.java    # Per-player inspection state & navigation
    │   │   │   │   └── SessionService.java   # Caffeine-backed session cache
    │   │   │   └── validate/
    │   │   │       └── ValidationService.java # Type validation & coercion
    │   │   │
    │   │   ├── model/
    │   │   │   ├── DataNode.java             # Core tree node (mutable, deep-copyable)
    │   │   │   ├── DataType.java             # NBT-compatible type enum
    │   │   │   ├── InspectableObject.java    # Inspected object wrapper
    │   │   │   ├── InspectableType.java      # BLOCK / ENTITY / ITEM enum
    │   │   │   ├── diff/
    │   │   │   │   ├── DataDiff.java         # Single diff entry model
    │   │   │   │   └── DiffType.java         # ADDED / REMOVED / CHANGED
    │   │   │   ├── schema/
    │   │   │   │   ├── Schema.java           # Namespace schema definition
    │   │   │   │   └── SchemaField.java      # Individual field descriptor
    │   │   │   └── validation/
    │   │   │       └── ValidationResult.java # Validation outcome (ok / error)
    │   │   │
    │   │   ├── repository/
    │   │   │   └── ChangeLogRepository.java  # File-based edit audit log
    │   │   │
    │   │   ├── security/
    │   │   │   └── PermissionGuard.java      # Centralized permission checks
    │   │   │
    │   │   ├── service/
    │   │   │   └── DataLensServiceLocator.java # Central service registry
    │   │   │
    │   │   ├── ui/
    │   │   │   ├── chat/
    │   │   │   │   └── ChatRenderer.java     # Tree & diff rendering to chat
    │   │   │   └── gui/
    │   │   │       ├── GuiListener.java      # Inventory click event handler
    │   │   │       ├── InspectorGui.java     # 54-slot paginated chest GUI
    │   │   │       └── NodeRenderer.java     # ItemStack rendering for data nodes
    │   │   │
    │   │   └── util/
    │   │       ├── AdapterLoader.java        # Runtime version detection & adapter loading
    │   │       ├── PathCompleter.java        # Tab-completion for data paths & values
    │   │       ├── PdcUtil.java              # PDC reading utilities
    │   │       └── VersionUtil.java          # Server version parsing
    │   │
    │   └── resources/
    │       ├── plugin.yml                    # Bukkit plugin descriptor
    │       └── config.yml                    # Default configuration
    │
    └── test/
        └── java/dev/darkblade/datalens/
            ├── core/
            │   ├── diff/
            │   │   └── DiffServiceTest.java
            │   └── validate/
            │       └── ValidationServiceTest.java
            └── model/
                └── DataNodeTest.java

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License

Copyright © 2026 Parallax Development. All rights reserved.