minecraft:behavior.look_at_entity — Look at Entity AI Goal

In Minecraft Bedrock, AI goals that control where an entity looks do not move the entity's feet unless the target angle exceeds the body rotation limit. When minecraft:behavior.look_at_entity becomes active, the game picks the closest entity within look_distance that passes the filters check, then interpolates the mob's head yaw and pitch toward that entity's eye position over look_time seconds.

Because looking around is normally an idle or low-importance action, you should give this component a higher priority number (meaning lower importance in Bedrock's priority system, where 0 is the highest priority) than combat, panic, or temptation goals. Typical priorities for look behaviors sit around 7 or 8, just above minecraft:behavior.random_look_around.

Note that the JSON component only updates the entity's internal head rotation variables (query.target_x_rotation and query.target_y_rotation). For the mob's head bone to actually turn visually in-game, its resource pack definition must run a standard look_at_target animation controller or bind those Molang queries to the head bone in a custom animation.

All properties inside minecraft:behavior.look_at_entity are optional, though leaving filters blank makes the mob look at almost any living entity nearby. Below are the supported fields for configuring the goal.

In most cases, you pair minecraft:behavior.look_at_entity with a filter testing for an entity family or specific type. When writing the filters block, remember that the entity being evaluated is the potential look target, so your filter tests should use "subject": "other".

The following example shows a custom guard golem that ignores passive animals and players during its idle look cycle, choosing instead to keep its eyes locked on nearby monsters or villagers within a 10-block radius. If nothing matches, it falls back to looking around randomly.

{
  "format_version": "1.20.80",
  "minecraft:entity": {
    "description": {
      "identifier": "wiki:guard_golem",
      "is_spawnable": true,
      "is_summonable": true
    },
    "components": {
      "minecraft:type_family": {
        "family": [ "golem", "mob" ]
      },
      "minecraft:health": {
        "value": 60,
        "max": 60
      },
      "minecraft:movement": {
        "value": 0.25
      },
      "minecraft:navigation.walk": {
        "can_path_over_water": false,
        "avoid_water": true
      },
      "minecraft:movement.basic": {},
      "minecraft:jump.static": {},
      "minecraft:behavior.look_at_entity": {
        "priority": 7,
        "look_distance": 10.0,
        "probability": 0.04,
        "look_time": {
          "min": 3.0,
          "max": 6.0
        },
        "angle_of_view_horizontal": 180,
        "angle_of_view_vertical": 90,
        "filters": {
          "any_of": [
            {
              "test": "is_family",
              "subject": "other",
              "value": "monster"
            },
            {
              "test": "is_family",
              "subject": "other",
              "value": "villager"
            }
          ]
        }
      },
      "minecraft:behavior.random_look_around": {
        "priority": 8
      }
    }
  }
}

You can also place minecraft:behavior.look_at_entity inside a component_groups entry to make an entity change what it pays attention to based on its current state. For example, an entity might ignore dropped items or armor stands normally, but watch another specific entity type closely when alerted or tamed.

When you remove a component group containing minecraft:behavior.look_at_entity while the mob is actively looking at something, the goal terminates immediately and the head returns to neutral (or yields to the next active look goal).

A very common stumbling block for creators is adding minecraft:behavior.look_at_entity to the behavior pack and wondering why the custom model stays completely rigid in-game. The behavior component only calculates the rotation angles; the resource pack must apply them to a bone named head.

Every vanilla mob uses the standard animation.common.look_at_target animation, which is already built into the vanilla resource pack and available to all custom entities without copying any animation files. You only need to reference it in your client_entity file under animations and run it in the scripts section, provided your geometry's head bone is named "head".

{
  "format_version": "1.10.0",
  "minecraft:client_entity": {
    "description": {
      "identifier": "wiki:guard_golem",
      "materials": {
        "default": "entity_alphatest"
      },
      "textures": {
        "default": "textures/entity/guard_golem"
      },
      "geometry": {
        "default": "geometry.guard_golem"
      },
      "animations": {
        "look_at_target": "animation.common.look_at_target"
      },
      "scripts": {
        "animate": [
          "look_at_target"
        ]
      },
      "render_controllers": [ "controller.render.default" ]
    }
  }
}

Bedrock includes three closely related goals for head tracking. If you only want a mob to look at players, use minecraft:behavior.look_at_player instead; it skips general entity filter evaluation and is slightly cheaper for the game engine to run across dozens of mobs. If you want a mob to stare at whatever it is actively attacking or following, use minecraft:behavior.look_at_target, which reads the mob's current target property directly rather than scanning a radius.

Reserve minecraft:behavior.look_at_entity for situations where the target is neither exclusively a player nor the mob's active combat target.

Stable in all modern Bedrock versions (1.8.0 through 1.21+). Does not require any experimental toggles.

Read out of the game itself, so the ids match the version you are building for.