Sentinel

Sentinel is PetalMC’s fair-play system. It runs entirely on the server, so there is nothing to install and nothing scanning your computer.

Its job is to keep the game fair for everyone, which comes down to two things:

• Identifying cheaters. It watches what characters do in the world and flags what an unmodified client operated by hand could not do.
• Limiting what makes the server unplayable for everyone else. Some builds - large automated farms above all - cost the server far more than their owner pays for them, so Sentinel turns the dial down on them.

Type /sentinel in game for the short version, and /sentinel status to see your own standing.

<Callout type=“tip” title=“The short version”> Play normally and you will never hear from it. One odd moment is never a problem. It does not punish lag, it does not punish being good at the game, and it never bans anyone by itself. </Callout>

We do not publish the specifics of what Sentinel measures or where its limits sit. That is deliberate: a published list is a list of things to work around. If you want to know whether something you are doing is allowed, ask a member of staff and you will get a straight answer.

The notice when you first join

The first time you connect, Sentinel shows you a notice covering what is not allowed, and the fact that deliberate circumvention is the one thing that gets you permanently banned. It also tells you plainly that gameplay information is recorded and may be reviewed with the help of automated tooling.

You have to accept it to play. Declining just disconnects you, with no mark against your name, and you will see the same notice next time you connect. If the rules are ever revised, you will be shown the new version once.

One odd moment is not a violation

This matters more than anything else on the page.

An impossible action gets cancelled, and that is usually the end of it. It only becomes a recorded violation if it keeps happening. The checks also relax when the server itself is running slowly, because lag makes everyone look like they are teleporting.

The checks that judge movement and mining apply to the ordinary survival worlds. Places where the rules of the world are deliberately not vanilla - the Abyss, the Aether, arenas, pockets, expeditions and the like - are judged differently or not at all.

What gets recorded

When Sentinel does act, it saves a snapshot first, so that a person can look at what really happened rather than guessing from a log line. A snapshot covers the scene around you and the moments leading up to it.

Chat is never included. Snapshots are tamper-evident, which protects you as much as anyone: if a detection was wrong, the evidence that proves it is still sitting there.

If it happens you will see a short message telling you a snapshot was taken.

Your standing

Standing is a rolling seven-day figure, so it recovers on its own as old entries age out.

Standing	Meaning
Green	No recorded kick in the last seven days
Yellow	One to four
Red	Five or more

While you are on Red, you cannot send or receive direct gold transfers, and you cannot send or accept party invitations. Other players see a ✖ beside your name in chat; you do not see it on your own. You are told about the restriction, with your current count, each time you log in.

Bans, and appealing

Sentinel does not ban anyone automatically. When a check is confirmed it cancels the action, kicks, and records the violation. That is the whole of what it can do on its own.

A permanent ban only ever comes from deliberately evading Sentinel or a staff decision, and it is always a human decision made after reading the evidence. See the rules for what counts as circumvention.

If you think a detection was wrong, contact a member of staff. They can walk through exactly what was recorded and clear your history. Disputing one costs you nothing, and a false positive costs us a glance.

<Callout type=“note” title=“Being throttled is not a Sentinel violation”> If a farm you built starts producing less, that is the throttling described on Farms & automation, not an accusation. Throttling never becomes a violation, however often it happens. </Callout>