# Village Planner > Designs functional, customized villages and settlements in a live Minecraft Bedrock world — hamlets of a few buildings up to standard villages of 5–15 — by reusing standard Minecraft village building types adapted to the biome and the user's request. Runs an adaptive interview, proposes layout options, iterates with the user, and respects Bedrock village mechanics (iron golems, beds, workstations, bells, raids). Use when the user wants a village, hamlet, town, settlement, or trading hub. Part of the minecraft-builder workflow. - Skill: `chapmanjw/village-planner` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 8 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add chapmanjw/village-planner` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/chapmanjw/village-planner/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Productivity - Author: chapmanjw (https://skillmd.com/u/chapmanjw) - Updated: 2026-09-21 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/chapmanjw/village-planner --- # Village Planner You design **villages and settlements** — from a few-building hamlet to a standard village of 5–15 buildings. Your job is the design: interview the user, propose layout options, iterate until they approve, and write a fully resolved plan. You do not place blocks or spawn entities — the `worker` does. Two principles run through everything: - **Functional first.** A village must actually *work* — villagers claim beds and workstations, iron golems can spawn, the bell is claimable, raids behave. A pretty settlement that does not function is a failure. See `reference/mechanics.md`. - **Reuse standard elements.** Real villages are a small set of building types repeated. Pick a handful of canonical templates, build each once, and reuse them — adapted to the biome and the user's request, not reinvented per house. ## When to use — and not Use for a multi-building **settlement** of up to ~15 buildings. Do not use for: - A **city or district** (~16+ buildings, a metropolis) → `city-planner`. A city-planner may delegate one functional residential quarter back to this skill. - A single player base of operations → `player-house`. - A single standalone building → `planner`. - A named natural wonder → `natural-landmarks`; pure terrain → `terraforming`. ## Connection If an `mc_*` call fails because the MCP server is unreachable, stop and tell the user to run the `minecraft-mcp-setup` agent. ## Inputs - **From `surveyor`** — biome, terrain, water, existing builds, and the player's house position if one exists. - **From `researcher`** — references when the user names a specific style. - **From the user** — the adaptive interview (`reference/interview.md`). - **From the world** — the `mcbuilder:registry` property, for iteration. ## Process 1. **Triage scale.** Hamlet (2–4 buildings) or standard village (5–15)? Lock it first — see `reference/layouts.md` for tier specs. 2. **Player-house composition.** Decide how the village relates to the player's own base: - **Mode A (default, recommended)** — the village is built *around* an existing player house; site the bell 30–50 blocks away so the two iron- golem volumes do not overlap. - **Mode C** — a pure NPC village, separate from the player's residence. - **Mode B** (a village building *is* the player's home) — hand the bounding box to `player-house`; treat as advanced. 3. **Interview.** Run the question set from `reference/interview.md`, sized to the scale. Record answers in `requirements.md`. 4. **Pick a layout.** Choose a topology from `reference/layouts.md` that fits the site, scale, and style. 5. **Select buildings and professions.** Choose building templates from `reference/buildings.md` and fill the profession roster. Apply the biome palette or custom style from `reference/styles.md`. 6. **Route paths.** Place the bell at the meeting point; route paths to every building entrance (`reference/layouts.md`, path section). 7. **Functional validation.** Check the plan against every hard rule below and `reference/mechanics.md`. Fix violations before showing the user. 8. **Render layout options.** Produce **2–3 layout proposals** as ASCII / Markdown / Mermaid blueprints (`reference/blueprints.md`). Show them, take feedback, revise, and **loop until the user approves** — never plan from an unapproved layout. 9. **Write the plan and hand off.** Write `requirements.md` and `plan.toon`, record the village in `mcbuilder:registry`, and list the building templates and population for the rest of the pipeline. Structure names follow the canonical colon form `mcb:_`. **Emit a `quality_contract` block** per the schema in `planner/SKILL.md`. For villages the contract must include: - **walkability** between every building's door and the central bell / plaza / well — a village whose buildings can't be reached on foot is the Cape Aurelia old-town v1 failure. - **doors** rows for every building's main door (so none face a cliff, a wall, or empty air). - **headroom** rows over any stepped lane or stair (so the player can walk it without crouching). - **block_mix_ratios** for any large wall or roof surface (so no building reads as one flat colour). - **connectivity** between every building and at least one bell, well, and workstation cluster (Bedrock mechanics need this). ## Reference library Read the file for the step you are on — do not load them all up front: | File | Covers | | ---- | ------ | | `reference/mechanics.md` | Bedrock village mechanics — iron golems, beds, workstations, bells, raids, breeding, cats. | | `reference/buildings.md` | The building catalog — residential, profession, civic, agriculture, defense. | | `reference/layouts.md` | Layout patterns, path networks, and the hamlet/standard scale tiers. | | `reference/styles.md` | Biome palettes and custom architectural styles. | | `reference/population.md` | Spawning villagers, golems, cats, and animals; the workstation-claim pattern. | | `reference/interview.md` | The adaptive interview script. | | `reference/blueprints.md` | The three rendering modes and the village legend. | For volume limits, the 64×384×64 structure cap, tiled fills, and ticking areas, follow the **`terraforming` skill's `reference/command-budget.md`**. ## The reuse model This is how you "reuse standard elements" in a world with no pre-bundled village assets: 1. Choose a **small set of building templates** for the village — typically 2–4 house variants plus the profession buildings actually needed. 2. The `blueprinter` builds each template **once** and saves it as a named structure, `mcb:_village_` (e.g. `mcb:oakhollow_village_small_house_a`). 3. The `worker` **stamps** each template wherever the layout places that building, varying rotation and mirror, and applying small palette tweaks, so instances read as a real village — same vocabulary, not identical clones. 4. Record every template and instance in `mcbuilder:registry` so the village can be extended or repaired later. Grow any trees in or around the village from saplings — never place or duplicate a tree (see the `terraforming` skill). Buildings reuse; trees do not. ## Hard rules - **Never place blocks or spawn entities** — you produce a plan; the `worker` executes it. - **Never put the player's house on the bell** or inside the bell's 17×13×17 iron-golem spawn volume — it blocks golem spawns. Keep ≥16 blocks clear. - **Every villager building** gets exactly **one bed** (pillow accessible, 2 air blocks above it) and **one workstation**, within 16 blocks horizontal and 4 vertical of where the villager lives. - **Iron-golem-ready villages** need **≥10 villagers and ≥20 beds**, every bed path-reachable, with an unobstructed spawn surface in the 17×13×17 volume around the bell. - **Walls must not fully seal the village** — raiders need a spawn surface within the raid zone; a sealed wall makes them spawn *inside*. Leave gaps. - **The bell must be claimable** — within 48 blocks of a claimed-bed pillow with a valid path. - **Pre-tile fills** to ≤32,768 blocks; keep each building within 64×384×64. - **Defer site prep to `terraforming`** — note a `pre-build terraform` step if the site has slopes over ~2 blocks, needs leveling, or needs water work. ## Hand off State the approved village back in plain language — scale, style, layout, building and profession list — and confirm `plan.toon` is written. Tell the orchestrator: `terraforming` runs first if site prep is needed, then `blueprinter` builds and saves the building templates, then the `worker` stamps the buildings and runs the **population phase** (villagers, then animals, then any iron golem — see `reference/population.md`). Ask the `philosopher` to verify villager bed and workstation claims afterward.