The Interaction Pipeline

This page aims to make the fairly complex and confusing process of things being right-clicked by the player more understandable, as well as clarifying what result to use where and why.

What Happens When I Right-Click?

When you right-click anywhere in the world, a number of things happen, depending on what you are currently looking at and what ItemStacks are in your hands. A number of methods returning one of two result types (see below) are called. Most of these methods cancel the pipeline if an explicit success or an explicit failure is returned. For the sake of readability, this "explicit success or explicit failure" will be called a "definitive result" from now on.

• InputEvent.InteractionKeyMappingTriggered is fired with the right mouse button and the main hand. If the event is canceled, the pipeline ends.
• Several circumstances are checked, for example that you are not in spectator mode or that all required feature flags for the ItemStack in your main hand are enabled. If at least one of these checks fails, the pipeline ends.
• Depending on what you are looking at, different things happen:
  • If you are looking at an entity that is within your reach and not outside the world border:
    • PlayerInteractEvent.EntityInteractSpecific is fired. If the event is canceled, the pipeline ends.
    • Entity#interactAt will be called on the entity you are looking at. If it returns a definitive result, the pipeline ends.
      • If you want to add behavior for your own entity, override this method. If you want to add behavior for a vanilla entity, use the event.
    • If the entity opens an interface (for example a villager trading GUI or a chest minecart GUI), the pipeline ends.
    • PlayerInteractEvent.EntityInteract is fired. If the event is canceled, the pipeline ends.
    • Entity#interact is called on the entity you are looking at. If it returns a definitive result, the pipeline ends.
      • If you want to add behavior for your own entity, override this method. If you want to add behavior for a vanilla entity, use the event.
      • For Mobs, the override of Entity#interact handles things like leashing and spawning babies when the ItemStack in your main hand is a spawn egg, and then defers mob-specific handling to Mob#mobInteract. The rules for results for Entity#interact apply here as well.
    • If the entity you are looking at is a LivingEntity, Item#interactLivingEntity is called on the ItemStack in your main hand. If it returns a definitive result, the pipeline ends.
  • If you are looking at a block that is within your reach and not outside the world border:
    • PlayerInteractEvent.RightClickBlock is fired. If the event is canceled, the pipeline ends. You may also specifically deny only block or item usage in this event.
    • IItemExtension#onItemUseFirst is called. If it returns a definitive result, the pipeline ends.
    • If the player is not sneaking and the event does not deny block usage, Block#use is called. If it returns a definitive result, the pipeline ends.
    • If the event does not deny item usage, Item#useOn is called. If it returns a definitive result, the pipeline ends.
• Item#use is called. If it returns a definitive result, the pipeline ends.
• The above process runs a second time, this time with the off hand instead of the main hand.

Result Types

There are two different types of results: InteractionResults and InteractionResultHolder<T>s. InteractionResult is used most of the time, only Item#use uses InteractionResultHolder<ItemStack>.

InteractionResult is an enum consisting of five values: SUCCESS, CONSUME, CONSUME_PARTIAL, PASS and FAIL. Additionally, the method InteractionResult#sidedSuccess is available, which returns SUCCESS on the server and CONSUME on the client.

InteractionResultHolder<T> is a wrapper around InteractionResult that adds additional context for T. T can be anything, but in 99.99 percent of cases, it is an ItemStack. InteractionResultHolder<T> provides wrapper methods for the enum values (#success, #consume, #pass and #fail), as well as #sidedSuccess, which calls #success on the server and #consume on the client.

Generally, the different values mean the following:

• InteractionResult#sidedSuccess (or InteractionResultHolder#sidedSuccess where needed) should be used if the operation should be considered successful, and you want the arm to swing. The pipeline will end.
• InteractionResult.SUCCESS (or InteractionResultHolder#success where needed) should be used if the operation should be considered successful, and you want the arm to swing, but only on one side. Only use this if you want to return a different value on the other logical side for whatever reason. The pipeline will end.
• InteractionResult.CONSUME (or InteractionResultHolder#consume where needed) should be used if the operation should be considered successful, but you do not want the arm to swing. The pipeline will end.
• InteractionResult.CONSUME_PARTIAL is mostly identical to InteractionResult.CONSUME, the only difference is in its usage in Item#useOn.
• InteractionResult.FAIL (or InteractionResultHolder#fail where needed) should be used if the item functionality should be considered failed and no further interaction should be performed. The pipeline will end. This can be used everywhere, but it should be used with care outside of Item#useOn and Item#use. In many cases, using InteractionResult.PASS makes more sense.
• InteractionResult.PASS (or InteractionResultHolder#pass where needed) should be used if the operation should be considered neither successful nor failed. The pipeline will continue. This is the default behavior (unless otherwise specified).

Some methods have special behavior or requirements, which are explained in the below chapters.

IItemExtension#onItemUseFirst

InteractionResult#sidedSuccess and InteractionResult.CONSUME don't have an effect here. Only InteractionResult.SUCCESS, InteractionResult.FAIL or InteractionResult.PASS should be used here.

Item#useOn

If you want the operation to be considered successful, but you do not want the arm to swing or an ITEM_USED stat point to be awarded, use InteractionResult.CONSUME_PARTIAL.

Item#use

This is the only instance where the return type is InteractionResultHolder<ItemStack>. The resulting ItemStack in the InteractionResultHolder<ItemStack> replaces the ItemStack the usage was initiated with, if it has changed.

The default implementation of Item#use returns InteractionResultHolder#consume when the item is edible and the player can eat the item (because they are hungry, or because the item is always edible), InteractionResultHolder#fail when the item is edible but the player cannot eat the item, and InteractionResultHolder#pass if the item is not edible.

Returning InteractionResultHolder#fail here while considering the main hand will prevent offhand behavior from running. If you want offhand behavior to run (which you usually want), return InteractionResultHolder#pass instead.