Add-on Project Setup and Folder Structure

Bedrock add-ons are almost always split into two separate packs that work together: a Behavior Pack (commonly abbreviated as BP) and a Resource Pack (RP). The Behavior Pack handles the server-side logic of your creation. It defines how entities move and attack, what loot tables blocks drop, how custom items function, and what recipes exist. If a player joins a multiplayer world, the server runs the Behavior Pack logic.

The Resource Pack handles everything the client sees and hears. It holds textures, 3D geometry models, animations, sound definitions, particles, and localization files. Even if you are only adding a single simple block, you will usually create both packs: the Behavior Pack defines the block's collision, friction, and destructibility, while the Resource Pack assigns its texture and display name.

In documentation and professional workspaces, you will see file paths prefixed with BP/ and RP/ to indicate which pack a file belongs to. The folder names inside these packs are strict. The game looks for exact pluralized folder names like entities, blocks, items, loot_tables, and textures. A typo in a top-level folder name will cause the game to silently ignore everything inside it.

When building an add-on, you should not zip and import your files every time you make an edit. Instead, you place your unzipped project folders inside the game's dedicated development directories. Minecraft reads from these folders every time you load a world, allowing rapid iteration.

These folders live inside a master directory named com.mojang. Inside com.mojang, you will find two folders specifically meant for creators: development_behavior_packs and development_resource_packs. Anything placed inside these two folders becomes immediately available in the world creation menu without needing to be imported.

On Windows 10 and 11, the location of com.mojang changed when the game migrated to the GDK app model. For current versions of Minecraft Bedrock on Windows, press Win + R and enter %APPDATA%\Minecraft Bedrock\Users\Shared\games\com.mojang to jump straight to the shared directory. If you are working on an older installation or a system that has not migrated, the folder is located inside the UWP app data path at %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\Microsoft.MinecraftUWP_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState\games\com.mojang. On Android devices, it resides under Android/data/com.mojang.minecraftpe/files/games/com.mojang, though modern Android versions require a file manager with scoped storage permissions or a USB connection to view it.

For Minecraft to recognize a folder inside development_behavior_packs as an actual pack, the root of that folder must contain a file named manifest.json. This file gives the pack its name, version, minimum supported game version, and unique identifiers.

Every manifest requires at least two Version 4 UUIDs (Universally Unique Identifiers): one inside the header block, and one inside the modules block. Never copy UUIDs from tutorials or reuse them across different projects. You must generate fresh UUIDs for every single header and module you create, using your code editor's extension or a standard UUID generator tool. If two packs share a UUID, Minecraft will treat them as duplicates and refuse to load one of them.

The min_engine_version array tells the game which baseline behavior rules to apply to your pack. Setting this to a recent stable version ensures your pack has access to modern components and fixes.

{
  "format_version": 2,
  "header": {
    "name": "My Custom Add-on BP",
    "description": "Behavior pack for custom content",
    "uuid": "f47ac10b-58cc-4372-a567-0e02b2c3d479",
    "version": [1, 0, 0],
    "min_engine_version": [1, 20, 80]
  },
  "modules": [
    {
      "description": "Behavior Data Module",
      "type": "data",
      "uuid": "550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000",
      "version": [1, 0, 0]
    }
  ],
  "dependencies": [
    {
      "uuid": "9a8b7c6d-5e4f-4a3b-8c2d-1e0f9a8b7c6d",
      "version": [1, 0, 0]
    }
  ]
}

Your Resource Pack also needs a manifest.json at its root inside development_resource_packs. It looks nearly identical to the Behavior Pack manifest, with one critical difference: the module type must be set to resources instead of data.

Look closely at the dependencies array in the Behavior Pack manifest from the previous section, and compare it to the header UUID of the Resource Pack below. By placing the Resource Pack's header UUID inside the Behavior Pack's dependencies block, you link the two packs together. When a player activates your Behavior Pack on a world, Minecraft will automatically find and activate the matching Resource Pack. This prevents players from loading your custom blocks or entities without their required textures and models.

{
  "format_version": 2,
  "header": {
    "name": "My Custom Add-on RP",
    "description": "Resource pack for custom content",
    "uuid": "9a8b7c6d-5e4f-4a3b-8c2d-1e0f9a8b7c6d",
    "version": [1, 0, 0],
    "min_engine_version": [1, 20, 80]
  },
  "modules": [
    {
      "description": "Resource Assets Module",
      "type": "resources",
      "uuid": "123e4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426614174000",
      "version": [1, 0, 0]
    }
  ]
}

Never develop an add-on blind. Minecraft Bedrock has a built-in diagnostic tool called the Content Log that catches JSON syntax errors, missing texture references, invalid component names, and script crashes the moment they happen.

Before creating your test world, open the main Minecraft Settings menu and navigate to the Creator tab. Turn on both Enable Content Log File and Enable Content Log GUI. When you load into a world with these settings active, any mistake in your pack will immediately print an error banner on the top of your screen, and you can press the assigned shortcut key to view the full error history.

Along with the Content Log, you should use a dedicated code editor such as Visual Studio Code. Place both your BP folder and RP folder into a single multi-root workspace so you can search across both packs at once. Adding a square PNG image named pack_icon.png to the root of each pack alongside manifest.json is also good practice, as it gives your pack a recognizable thumbnail in the game's settings menu.

Once your add-on works inside the development folders and you are ready to share it or test it on another device, you package it using Minecraft's custom archive extensions. These extensions are standard ZIP archives with renamed file endings that trigger Minecraft to import the files automatically when opened.

To package a single Behavior Pack or Resource Pack, select the contents of your pack folder—specifically manifest.json, pack_icon.png, and your subfolders—and compress them into a standard .zip file. Do not zip the outer folder itself; the manifest.json file must sit at the very top level inside the archive. Rename the resulting .zip file extension to .mcpack.

If your project uses both a Behavior Pack and a Resource Pack, create a .mcpack for each one, then compress both .mcpack files together into a new .zip archive. Rename that outer archive's extension to .mcaddon. When a player opens the .mcaddon file, Minecraft will extract and install both packs into its internal storage and link them automatically.

Manifest format_version 2 is stable and applies to all modern Bedrock versions from 1.13.0 through 1.21+. No experimental toggles are required for basic project setup, though min_engine_version should be set to at least [1, 20, 80] for modern component support.

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