Villagers Tasks
Enhance vanilla villagers by giving each profession a unique task that makes villages feel more alive and useful.
About
Villagers Tasks expands the behavior of existing vanilla villager professions by giving each one a practical task to perform automatically.
Instead of introducing new professions, the datapack enhances familiar villagers with abilities that make villages more dynamic and rewarding to build around.
Each profession contributes in its own way, from breeding animals and healing villagers to gathering resources, producing fish, boosting defenders, repairing tools or crafting paper and maps, while remaining balanced and vanilla-friendly.
Every task has its own timer, range and limits, all listed below. Tasks run once per second, except the Weaponsmith which checks four times per second.
Features
🥩 Butcher
Keeps livestock populations under control by culling the nearest adult animal when an area becomes overcrowded. Baby animals are ignored, and all vanilla drops are left on the ground.
Targets: cows, pigs, sheep and chickens
Radius: 12 blocks
Trigger: more than 50 adult animals in range
Timer: one animal every 5 seconds
⛪ Cleric
Heals injured villagers nearby to improve village survivability.
Radius: 8 blocks around the cleric
Trigger: any other villager below full health
Effect: Regeneration II for 5 seconds
Timer: checked every second
🌾 Farmer
Automatically breeds nearby adult animals, up to a population cap to prevent lag from endless mob growth. Baby animals are never bred but count toward the cap.
Targets: cows, pigs, sheep and chickens
Radius: 12 blocks
Max animals: stops breeding at 40 animals (all ages) in range
Effect: up to 2 adults per species enter love mode for 30 seconds
Timer: every 20 seconds
🧱 Mason
Generates weighted mining resources and drops them at its feet, as if it had just mined them.
Timer: every 10 seconds, only during work hours (daytime 2000 to 9000)
Drops: Cobblestone 26%, Andesite / Granite / Diorite 16% each, Coal 10%, Raw Copper 7%, Raw Iron 5%, Raw Gold 3%, Diamond 1%
🎣 Fisherman
Stores fish from the vanilla fishing loot table inside its barrel. It never fishes while sleeping.
Timer: every 30 seconds, only during work hours (daytime 2000 to 9000)
Barrel: must be within 3 blocks of the fisherman
Drops: Cod 60%, Salmon 25%, Pufferfish 13%, Tropical Fish 2% (same odds as a player fishing, no junk or treasure)
🐑 Shepherd
Shears nearby adult sheep, drops matching colored wool, and keeps wild wolves away to protect the flock.
Timer: every 60 seconds
Shearing: adult sheep within 6 blocks that still have their wool, 1 wool of the sheep's color each
Wolves: untamed wolves within 8 blocks are pushed back 4 blocks (tamed wolves are ignored)
🤪 Nitwit
Performs random useless animations, including jumping, laughing, spinning, or playing music notes. Purely cosmetic.
Timer: every 15 seconds
Animations: one of 4, each with a 25% chance
⚔️ Weaponsmith
Grants a brief Strength boost to nearby players and iron golems fighting zombies. Has a cooldown.
Radius: 12 blocks around the weaponsmith
Trigger: a zombie, zombie villager, husk or drowned within 8 blocks of the player or golem
Effect: Strength I for 10 seconds
Cooldown: 15 seconds, only started when a boost is actually given
Timer: checked 4 times per second
🔨 Toolsmith
Slowly repairs one damaged tool at a time in the inventories of nearby players. Has a cooldown.
Radius: 12 blocks around the toolsmith
Cooldown: 30 seconds
Effect: restores 10% durability to the first damaged tool found in each player's inventory, then moves on to the next once it is fully repaired
Tools: pickaxes, axes, shovels and hoes (wood to netherite, plus copper), shears, fishing rods, flint and steel, brushes
📚 Librarian
Once per day, at a random moment during work hours, drops glass, a name tag, or a level 1 enchanted book.
Frequency: once per day, resets at dawn
Work hours: daytime 2000 to 9000, guaranteed before the end of work hours
Drops: one third chance each of Glass (2 to 4), Name Tag, or an Enchanted Book with a random level I enchantment
🗺️ Cartographer
While working, produces paper, empty maps, or, occasionally, a compass.
Work hours: daytime 2000 to 9000 (the timer only runs during work hours)
Timer: every 30 seconds of work
Drops: Paper 60% (1 to 3), Empty Map 34%, Compass 6%
🧵 Leatherworker
Converts rotten flesh into leather in the inventories of nearby players.
Timer: every 10 seconds
Radius: 12 blocks around the leatherworker
Conversion: 4 rotten flesh for 1 leather per player each cycle, taken from a single stack of at least 4
Delivery: the leather goes straight into the inventory (dropped at the player's feet if it is full)
Settings menu
Every profession can be enabled or disabled from an in-game menu. Settings apply to the whole world for every player and are saved with it. All professions are enabled by default.
How to open it: press G (the Quick Actions key), or press Esc and use the Villagers Tasks button on the pause screen. If other packs also add an entry, a list that includes Villagers Tasks is shown instead.
How it works: each villager has a button that cycles through Keep (unchanged, the default), On and Off. Press Apply to save. Because Keep never changes anything, you do not need to know the current settings. Show status lists the disabled professions in the chat.
Who can apply changes: operators only. In singleplayer this means cheats must be enabled. Minecraft may ask you to confirm the command when you press Apply. On a multiplayer server, reconnect after installing or updating the datapack so the menu appears.
Commands
General
Admin
/function villagers_tasks:menu/status
Lists the disabled professions in the chat.
/function villagers_tasks:menu/apply
Sets professions directly, for example from a command block or a script. Use 1 for on, 0 for off and 2 for unchanged. All 12 keys are required: butcher, cleric, farmer, mason, fisherman, shepherd, nitwit, weaponsmith, toolsmith, librarian, cartographer, leatherworker.
/function villagers_tasks:uninstall
Removes the scoreboards and tags before you remove the datapack.
Compatibility
| Version | Status |
|---|---|
| 1.16.x - 1.21.8 | ❌ Unsupported |
| 1.21.9 - 26.3 | ✅ Supported |
| 26.4 snapshots | ✅ Supported |
Installation
1. Download the datapack.
2. Place it inside your world's datapacks folder.
3. Run /reload or restart the world.
4. Have fun!
1. Download the mod.
2. Place it inside your mods folder of your instance.
3. Restart your game.
4. Have fun!
FAQ
Does it add new villager professions?
No. It enhances the existing vanilla professions with new automated behaviors.
Is it multiplayer compatible?
Yes. It works in both singleplayer and multiplayer worlds.
Does it require a resource pack?
No. Everything works without a resource pack.
Can I use it with other villager datapacks or mods?
In most cases yes, as long as they don't modify the same villager behaviors.
Can I disable some professions?
Yes. Press G (or Esc and the Villagers Tasks button), set the professions you do not want to Off and press Apply. Only operators can apply changes.
Who can change the settings?
Only operators. Everyone can open the menu, but the Apply button runs a command that requires operator permissions. In singleplayer, enable cheats.
Does it cause lag?
No. Tasks run once per second (the Weaponsmith checks four times per second), and animal breeding is capped at 40 animals in range so farms cannot grow out of control.
Do villagers walk to their workstation to do their task?
No. The datapack does not control villager pathfinding. Tasks trigger wherever the villager stands, so blocks like the Fisherman's barrel must be within about 3 blocks of it.
Are baby animals affected?
The Butcher ignores them completely (they are neither counted nor culled). The Farmer only breeds adults, but baby animals still count toward its population cap.