Scarecrow

The problem

Farms in Minecraft only run when a player is nearby. On a small server that means farms stop the moment everyone logs off.

How it works

Scarecrow places an invisible stand-in where you need one. On Paper it is a real server-side player with a connection that goes nowhere, so the game treats it like a player for mob spawning and spawners. Chunk tickets keep the surrounding chunks at entity-ticking level, so crops grow and redstone keeps running.

/scarecrow scan draws the covered area with particles, so you can see exactly what is being kept alive.

Two platforms

The Paper version uses paperweight to reach Minecraft internals. Everything version-specific sits in one bridge file, which keeps updates to new Minecraft versions small.

The Fabric port is server-side only: players do not need to install anything. It uses Polymer to generate and host the scarecrow model's resource pack automatically, offers a lighter chunk-only mode, and imports the Paper plugin's config on first run.