contents.json — Pack File Index

When Minecraft Bedrock loads a pack from disk, it needs to know which files exist inside the pack folder. By default, if no contents.json file is present at the root of the pack, the game scans the directory tree directly and discovers every JSON, PNG, OGG, and script file on its own.

However, if a contents.json file exists next to manifest.json, the engine switches how it loads the pack. Instead of scanning the folders freely, Minecraft treats the array inside contents.json as the master list of files in the pack. If a file exists on your hard drive—say, a new block definition or item texture—but its relative path is missing from contents.json, the game can completely ignore that file as if it were never created.

For Marketplace Partners, this file is required by the submission pipeline. The encryption process puts a binary header on contents.json and attaches per-file encryption keys to the entries inside it. For standard community add-ons distributed as .mcpack or .mcaddon archives, contents.json is completely optional.

A contents.json file belongs in the root directory of a pack, right next to manifest.json. If your project has both a Behaviour Pack and a Resource Pack, each pack has its own separate contents.json listing only the files inside that specific pack.

In an unencrypted pack, the structure is minimal: a top-level JSON object containing a version integer and a content array. Every item in the content array is an object with a path property pointing to a file relative to the pack root, always using forward slashes.

{
  "version": 1,
  "content": [
    {
      "path": "manifest.json"
    },
    {
      "path": "pack_icon.png"
    },
    {
      "path": "textures/terrain_texture.json"
    },
    {
      "path": "textures/blocks/custom_slate.png"
    },
    {
      "path": "texts/en_US.lang"
    }
  ]
}

A Behaviour Pack uses the exact same schema as a Resource Pack. When present at BP/contents.json, it lists server-side files such as entities, blocks, items, loot tables, functions, and script files.

Notice that folder names themselves are not given their own entries; only actual files with extensions are listed in the content array.

{
  "version": 1,
  "content": [
    {
      "path": "manifest.json"
    },
    {
      "path": "pack_icon.png"
    },
    {
      "path": "blocks/custom_slate.json"
    },
    {
      "path": "loot_tables/blocks/custom_slate.json"
    },
    {
      "path": "scripts/main.js"
    }
  ]
}

For almost all day-to-day add-on development, the answer is no. In fact, keeping a static contents.json in your development folder is one of the most common causes of silent bugs. Whenever you add a new file to your pack while a stale contents.json sits at the root, you risk the game ignoring your new file until you either update the index or delete it.

Sometimes Minecraft itself or third-party pack editors will auto-generate a contents.json file inside packs placed in the development_behavior_packs or development_resource_packs folders. If you export a template or copy an existing pack to start a new project, you will often inherit an old contents.json without realizing it.

Unless you are actively testing a build pipeline that automatically regenerates contents.json on every save, the best workflow during development is to simply delete BP/contents.json and RP/contents.json. Minecraft will fall back to reading your folders directly.

If you open a downloaded Marketplace pack in a text editor, its contents.json will not look like a normal text file. The file begins with a binary header followed by encrypted payload data. Inside that encrypted data, the content array holds additional metadata used by the game's DRM system to decrypt individual assets in memory.

Community creators cannot generate valid encrypted contents.json files on their own and do not need to. If you see garbage characters at the top of a contents.json file, you are looking at an encrypted pack.

Applies to all modern Minecraft Bedrock versions (1.16.0 through current releases). No experimental toggles are required.

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