First Steps Checklist

First Steps Checklist

Once your server is running and rebranded, work through this checklist before you let real players in. Most of the issues covered on the Troubleshooting and FAQ page happen because one of these steps got skipped.

1. Confirm Your Own Rank

Log in and check that your account has the Owner rank in LuckPerms.

/lp user <yourname> info

2. Confirm the Leaderboards Are Tracking

Run the following and confirm the board shows as active.

/ajlb list

If it looks empty or broken, see Leaderboards and Podium NPCs before doing anything else. This is the single most common first-day issue with this setup, and there is a specific, known cause.

3. Walk Every Spawn Exit

Check that the rules, welcome, and tutorial signage displays correctly at every exit, and confirm it reflects your rebranded server, not GenRaid or GenSteal. See Spawn Signage if you need to edit or reposition anything.

4. Check the Leaderboard Podium NPCs

Look at each podium NPC and confirm the skins are resolving instead of showing a default Steve skin permanently. If a position has no player yet, that is expected and covered on the leaderboards page, not a bug.

5. Test World Protection With a Non-OP Account

This step matters more than it sounds like it does. Log in with an account that does not have OP and does not have the Owner or Manager rank, and try to break a block inside a protected region.

Do not test this as your OP or Owner account. OP status and top-tier ranks are given broad wildcard permissions by design, and those wildcards silently include region bypass permissions. If you test as OP, you may believe protection is broken when it is actually working exactly as intended, or you may accidentally build in a spot you are not supposed to be able to reach. See World Protection and Regions for the full explanation.

6. Review the Rank Ladder

Open LuckPerms and look through each rank's permissions, prefix, and weight. Confirm the ladder matches what you actually want before you hand any ranks out to real staff or players. See Ranks and Permissions for a full breakdown of what each rank includes by default.

7. Review the Punishment System

Confirm your staff team understands the ban and mute duration limits per rank before they start moderating. See Staff Punishment System.

Once Everything Above Checks Out

Your server is ready. Open it up.