[1.21.11] NotchNet – Your Personal, Private AI Assistant (In-Game!)

[topaz hull]

Hey everyone! I wanted to share a project I've been working on called NotchNet.

The goal is simple: Give players a powerful AI assistant directly in Minecraft chat so they never have to Alt-Tab to a wiki or a browser again—all while keeping your data strictly yours.

🛡️ Your AI, Not Ours.
This is the most important part: NotchNet is not a wrapper for a corporate API that harvests your data.

Self-Hosted: You run your own local Python backend.

Private: Your queries, mod lists, and game data stay on your hardware.

Open Source: The mod is licensed under GNU GPL v3.0.

✨ What can it do?
/notchnet <question>: Ask anything from "What’s the best Y-level for diamonds?" to complex redstone logic.

(this is still currently in development) Mod-Aware Intelligence: The AI scans your specific modpack. If you have 200 mods installed, it learns about those mods so it can give you relevant advice.

RAG Integration: It uses Retrieval-Augmented Generation to pull from actual Minecraft Wiki data, ensuring the answers aren't just "hallucinations" but are grounded in game facts.

Zero Lag: The AI "thinks" asynchronously in the background so your TPS stays smooth.

🛠️ Setup
Fabric Mod: Install the NotchNet client mod (requires Fabric API).

Local Backend: Run the Python-based NotchNet server (available on GitHub) to act as the "brain."

Play: Connect the two via /notchnet config and start chatting.

Check it out on GitHub: https://github.com/aaravchour/NotchNet

Download on CurseForge: https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/notchnet

Download on Modrinth: https://modrinth.com/mod/notchnet
I’d love to hear what you guys think or if you have ideas for more deep-integration features!

[native swallow]

this is certainly a smarter approach than last time, but the setup is a huge barrier to entry

also, an 8b llm is quite large for a lot of people

might want to think about something like llama3.2:3b or even 1b

[topaz hull]

you can change it dw

theres an option for ollama cloud models too

[topaz hull]

im gonna try and make an app for it, (which probably wont go well)

[native swallow]

well if you know what to change, you certainly can, but most people dont

most people know very little about llms

[topaz hull]

when you run the start script, it asks for it

[native swallow]

still most people wont know what that means, they will just use the default

[topaz hull]

still gonna have to figure out the ease of use part

[native swallow]

yeah, i dont think ease of use is going to be possible with python backend stuff

that and with ollama

[topaz hull]

apps?

[native swallow]

still not very friendly

[topaz hull]

whats your definition of friendly - trying to get another perspective here

[native swallow]

i made a mod like this as an api that runs everything in python (even an llm) and it auto installs it for you when you load the mod up

but curseforge's moderation team doesnt like that automatic setup

so, thats what i mean as ease of use is going to be hard

[topaz hull]

tbh an app gonna be the best option here

im hoping other people can contribute too, since im busy with school

[native swallow]

maybe an app is best, maybe not, but im currently rebuilding that api i made to be moderation-friendly

maybe once its done, you can swap over to it

granted its a java api, so theres no python usability with it

and that handles model selection automatically too

[topaz hull]

tru

[topaz hull]

you're gonna have to do it differently

because if it just directly downloads stuff to your pc, it could be malware, thats why curseforge shuts its down

[topaz hull]

its a breach of peoples security

so maybe you have to add consent?

[native swallow]

yeah, i used to download a python standalone build, but they didnt like all the io operations and such

they said consent is irrelevant because there are a lot of children on curseforge

[topaz hull]

thats true

something like this is better for the curseforge moderation team, because these two things were seperate

[native swallow]

but my current solution is to just jni and to download dlls from a repo (or if that gets blocked, which the mod team didnt shut the idea down, ill just package it with the jars)

[topaz hull]

was your project open source?

[native swallow]

the one i already made is, but the one im working on isnt released yet, so its not public yet

[topaz hull]

so is it essentially the same as mine?

[native swallow]

well mine is an api for generic ai operations

like llms, tts, rvc, vc, whisper, etc

and its extendable

[topaz hull]

not for helping you in minecraft?

[native swallow]

no, its got zero functionality on its own

[topaz hull]

oh i see

[native swallow]

but as i said, its an api

[topaz hull]

im trying to add a feature where to ai controls your game for you

but idk how that'll go down on public servers

[native swallow]

tbh id be more concerned about making it an actual thing

seems like its going to be incredibly difficult to get something really bad

[topaz hull]

take the code from baritone lol

[native swallow]

i guess that works lol

[exotic zinc]

AI slop moment. The modded community as a whole does not have a fond desire for, or liking of AI in mods

[exotic zinc]

this falls under rule 2

[topaz hull]

what rule exactly

[exotic zinc]

??rule 2

[unreal swan]

Rule #2
Do not discuss clients, exploits or methods that are intended to exploit the game or cheat in multiplayer. This includes pirated/cracked/hacked launchers such as TLauncher as well as hacking on anarchy servers.

[exotic zinc]

??cheatadjacent

[unreal swan]

We all know what cheats are and how they work
But when it comes to enforcing no-cheating rules (See: ??rule 2), things get a bit more complicated.
The basis of rule 2 is that we cannot encourage, assist with, or promote the usage of cheats. This is easy enough to understand, but what most people don't seem to understand is the idea of cheat-adjacency.

Cheat-adjacency is the idea that while something may not specifically be a cheat in and of itself, its functionality or the methods in which it functions are themselves potentially a cheat, or the makings of a cheat.
This includes whether you personally intend for it to be used as a cheat or not, because discussing it/promoting it in this server makes it public for everyone, not just you.

If we assist with/promote something that is functionally a cheat, even if it's not directly a cheat itself, we are essentially helping with a cheat, and future readers will be able to look at this conversation to work out how to make their cheats, essentially causing us to break rule 2

So a quick summary:

1. If it's a cheat, it's a cheat
2. Whether you personally intend to cheat is irrelevant
3. If it acts like a cheat, or does the same things as a cheat, it's a cheat
4. Discussing the mechanics of cheats and how they might work, is also a breach of rule 2.

[topaz hull]

ok what the bot wont do is mine diamonds for you

[exotic zinc]

or anything

[topaz hull]

but what it will do is help build complex redstone contraptions that the average minecraft player wont understand

[exotic zinc]

the second it mines anything,. it's considered a cheat

[topaz hull]

ok mate thats your opinion, if you dont like it just say that

no need to argue

[exotic zinc]

the average minecraft player won't need it if it's not something they feel they will ever want

[topaz hull]

they will want it if its in easy reach

[exotic zinc]

my point: it's not going to go over well here in this community

[topaz hull]

you: doesnt mean the entire community

[exotic zinc]

@mystic magnet do you have thoughts on this?

[topaz hull]

unless if theres 20 people saying its shit its shit

[native swallow]

my take is that ai is fine as long as you make a genuinely transformative mod

[topaz hull]

i agree

[native swallow]

and i dont mean using ai to make a mod, thats a different story

[topaz hull]

yh yh

[native swallow]

i mean ai as a mechanic

[mystic magnet]

I read shortly

[native swallow]

but ai controlling a player is definitely too far

[topaz hull]

what about for crafting items? helping with commands?

im saying it should be used as a tool not a dependency

it should be used to help you

[exotic zinc]

you want players to be lazy, and not learn how to play the game themselves

got it

[topaz hull]

its a video game

not a school assignment

[exotic zinc]

and every other video game I've played, doesn't play itself for you

[topaz hull]

let people play minecraft how they want to play it then?

thats what minecrafts for

[native swallow]

an ai helping with crafting and commands is not that transformative

it seems more slop than anything else

[topaz hull]

but its something that doesnt cross lines

[exotic zinc]

for crafting, we already have JEI/REI/EMI

[topaz hull]

something balanced

[native swallow]

yeah that too

[topaz hull]

im just giving examples, not definitive features

[native swallow]

i think a chatbot is probably the farthest you will want to go

[topaz hull]

mhm

[native swallow]

and even then, not everyone is going to like that

afterall its just basically chatgpt

[topaz hull]

i think commands should be the limit here

because i still dont know how /give a sharpness 255 sword

[exotic zinc]

even commands have a limit. cuz using AI to give you items, seems redundant when you can just hit creative mode

[topaz hull]

but creative mode cant give you items with special attributes

[exotic zinc]

and this, is where it turns cheat adjacent again.

[native swallow]

i mean if you want to ask a chatbot to create a command for you, thats probably fine, but an ai running commands for you is probably the line

[topaz hull]

searching the internet for commands is basically the same no?

[exotic zinc]

anyway, I'm waiting tslat's thoughts, cuz he's been modding the game for as long as I can remember

[topaz hull]

so if thats cheating then a million other things would be cheating too

[topaz hull]

yhyh im not saying itll run commands for you, but you can copy and paste it

[native swallow]

i personally wouldnt expand the mod to give the ai any capabilities outside chat

[topaz hull]

noted

but at the same time

why wouldnt you just use chatgpt

there has to be a reason to download this mod

[exotic zinc]

yes. this whole idea has become redundant

[native swallow]

but if you make the mod able to scan mod files to find recipes and loot tables to help, thats probably the direction i would take

[topaz hull]

so adding some basic features (not playing the game for you)

[topaz hull]

yh

[native swallow]

but again, this is still just practically a chatgpt wrapper

[topaz hull]

not really

because chatgpt is still prone to hallucinations

[mystic magnet]

all llms are

[native swallow]

yeah idk how this isnt

[mystic magnet]

it's an inherent property of llms

[topaz hull]

not if you give it context

[mystic magnet]

incorrect

it's an inherent property of llms

[topaz hull]

which is what im doing here

[mystic magnet]

it's a defining feature of the way it works

context is irrelevvant

[native swallow]

granted its harder to hallucinate if you are given the information in the prompt, its still possible

[mystic magnet]

llms don't apply logic, they apply patterns

by definition they will hallucinate

[topaz hull]

when i mean context i mean things like faiss or chromasb

not if you give the right prompt template

[native swallow]

trust me, small llms are prone to hallucination, even if the information is in the context window

less so large llms, but theres no escaping that

[topaz hull]

ive managed to prevent this before with 3b parameter models

[exotic zinc]

I don't trust something that can't do proper hands in images ngl

[topaz hull]

you just have to give your context VERY precisely

[exotic zinc]

the average player also doen't know how to do that

[topaz hull]

the average player isnt gonna worry about that

[exotic zinc]

spend a week in #player-help

[topaz hull]

only developers will

[native swallow]

whether or not the context can prevent hallucination aside, you cant do that for everything

command generation is an example where context dumping wont work

[topaz hull]

yes you can

you have to give it instructions in the fass index

[native swallow]

theres just no realistic method of doing that

[native swallow]

i think you overestimate the capability of rag

[topaz hull]

for example i would create a folder of txt files, containing every single command there is

[topaz hull]

there is no limit theres just the problem of size

google uses it

so does chatgpt

[native swallow]

yeah, but theres too much nuance to filling in the blank

[topaz hull]

and pretty much every large chatbot

[native swallow]

rag doesnt work for everything

[mystic magnet]

anyway

a couple notes on this from the moderation side

the project itself is fine as a chatbot

any kind of automation is not

and if I see it come up again I'll remove the post and prevent it from being re-added

[native swallow]

perfect assessment

[exotic zinc]

this is why I wanted his opinion

[topaz hull]

doesnt work for images yes, anything text based tes

[pearl heath]

damn clankers are stealing our jobs, now we dont even have to play the game ourselves

[topaz hull]

might wanna read the whole chat buddy

[pearl heath]

im not gonna do that actually theres like 2 hours of this

[native swallow]

so real

[pearl heath]

i will be leaving now

[native swallow]

except you actually can

if you can embed it, you can use it in a vector database

[topaz hull]

has to be a image based model

we’re talking llms here

[native swallow]

which multimodal models are a thing

not to mention there are ways to get a text only llm to understand images

[topaz hull]

that requires either extracting text from images, or using a vision based model to convert it to text

[native swallow]

well i personally wouldnt do it without text extraction, but the premise is to just run an image embedding through a projection model to generate "soft tokens" to give to the llm

[topaz hull]

i guess thats true too

[silk knot]

threads like this remind me how overly critical all internet circles are of even the mention of ai

I think the idea of the model parsing through your data packs and mods could work in theory, but you'll need extensive testing to ensure this is remotely usable for at least the average pack-creator

given the complexity of the concept, I think your target audience is more on the technical side of pack creation rather than the standard modded Minecraft player side of things

[mystic magnet]

Its not because of ai itself

Its because of the culture and the mindset its created

And how much pain it’s causing developers through having to deal with people’s ignorant bullshit

Company owners forcing employees to use ai bullshit, wasting time and costing jobs because theyve been told its a silver bullet
Users who already thought they were god’s gift to the world generating garbage and shoving it into other people’s faces like theyre a genius
Clueless idiots generating trash and then arrogantly demanding developers help them fix the trash when it inevitably doesn’t work, etc

Not even mentioning all of the mental health issues its creating and the absolute decline of critical thinking, problem solving, and self-reliance that its causing globally

[native swallow]

yeah people are a little sensitive to anything ai, but if you make an ai feature that’s not slop and actually transformative, people don’t really care

it’s just the incredible amount of ai slop that turns people off whenever ai in general is involved

[silk knot]

good takes

100% agreed, but as a dev I try to stay unbothered best I can

nearly impossible in 2025 and I'm betting 2026 is just gonna get worse 🙃

[quick flame]

Well... I have seen multiple people say that anything in any way related to AI is automatically "slop". So, I think that a number of the most vocal people aren't going to be as accepting as you might expect.

[native swallow]

well ive put out a post showcasing a mod i made that allows you to have real voice conversations with villagers, literally about as ai involved as you can get, and no one even said anything negative

it’s a fine line for sure, but definitely there

[pine rune]

As an AI user, I can guarantee 50% of everything I get as an output is definitely slop so I understand where they are coming from lmao

[topaz hull]

yh true, ive posted this in llm servers, and ive gotten so much praise compared to here

[mystic magnet]

Yeah you need to understand that the mc modding community has been at the sharp end of the ai slop stick since it became a thing

Theres not a good outlook on it here

Because its used as a garbage generator and basically nothing else

[topaz hull]

ai slop isnt stuff like mine, which i coded myself, but rather full minecraft mods created by ai, thats something people get confused with

ai slop isnt things with ai

[opaque niche]

I mean useless fucking chatbot on the bottom of every site is.

[native swallow]

that’s a fair point lol

[topaz hull]

merl 🙏

[pure coral]

I don't know.

[jolly bone]

would notch even approve of it being named after him