GitHub's "Latest release" is the newest game release, so new players download the game's archive, which
does not start on its own (#1647). Making a launcher release the latest instead would break every
installed horizon-server, install.sh and install.ps1: they ask for releases/latest and expect the game's
archives, and a server that can't update can't fetch a fix either. So the game stays the latest and says
where to go:
- The notes open with "Want to play? Download the Horizon launcher, not the files below", linking
playhorizon.dev and the launcher releases. It is raw HTML on one line, which GitHub renders and the
launcher's notes view and one-line summary skip (pulldown-cmark HTML events), so launchers already
installed don't tell players to download themselves. The game footer that said the same at the bottom
goes. The site's Releases page leaves the block out.
- release.yml gives each archive a label ("Game files the launcher installs: Linux (...)", "Dedicated
server for Linux (...)"), which GitHub shows instead of the file name. Everything that downloads
matches the asset's name, which is unchanged.
Fixes#1647
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
New players ask on Discord whether Horizon is legit and whether it is vibecoded. One plain page answers
both, every claim checked against the repository today: agents write most of the code, what checks it
instead of a human reading every line (harnesses, verify, parity, the contribution gate, the release
smoke test), signed checksums, the macOS and Windows signing status as it is (not notarized, not
code-signed), the mod sandbox, opt-in telemetry, no Mojang files and no other project's code.
On the website (docs nav under Start here, a card in the home page's community section, the footers) and
as docs/how-horizon-is-built.md. CONTRIBUTING.md gets the public "Only original code" rule the page links.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
docs/api/mods.md gets "Ways in": one API (the WIT world) and one sandbox
(WebAssembly) for every language. Rust is first-class; Lua scripts are
planned, run by an interpreter that is itself a WebAssembly mod linked with
the script's capabilities only, with hot reload of the script; C, C++, Zig,
TinyGo, AssemblyScript and JavaScript/TypeScript are to be evaluated, each
listed with its cost measured against Rust.
Server mods are their own line (api 0.3); block entities are no longer
tied to a draft. Promotion to stable: the orchestrator proposes with the
evidence, Ludovic approves.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
docs/api/ gets one page per surface other programs build on (mods,
shaders, agent control, servers, the launcher, data formats), each with an
overview measured from the source, the guide, the generated reference, examples,
its stability, what is not there yet and a changelog, plus the policy every
API follows (docs/api/stability.md): a version per API, semver lines,
experimental / preview / stable, deprecation windows, compatibility tests and
the level of every part today.
The website gets a "Build on Horizon" page (website/docs/apis.md) that
summarises them and links the repository's pages.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
A developer of Iris showed that Horizon's shader pack code was written from
Iris's source. This removes it: the horizon-shaderpack crate, Java pack
loading and its render stages, Horizon's own WGSL packs and the example
packs, the Shader Packs screen and its option, the launcher's shader pack
browsing and installing, and the docs about them. Shader packs may come
back later as a clean-room rewrite.
The vanilla renderer and its post-processing (resolution scale, FXAA) are
unchanged. Options files that name a pack load and drop the key; the
launcher reads manifests that list a shader pack, and files in
`shaderpacks/` are never deleted.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
🤖 Agent: merged after verify and CI parity passed; release dry run 39935111815 was green (the smoke test drew a world, no blocker, it would publish as the release and latest). One channel, as Ludovic decided on 2026-10-23.
Every release is now published as the release (one channel, Ludovic's
decision of 2026-10-23), so the launcher drops its Stable/Alpha choice:
the Updates row in Settings, `horizon-launcher update-channel` and its MCP
tool, the channel on the Versions page, in `versions` and in the footer.
It updates to the newest game release that is not a pre-release (GitHub's
latest) and looks every 30 minutes. The pre-releases of the old Alpha
channel stay listed and installable by hand, never as an update. Old
`update_channel` / `beta_builds` keys in settings.json are ignored.
On Linux a release build that starts no longer rewrites the
applications-menu entry to point at itself. It writes the entry only when
there is none, or when the program it starts (TryExec, else Exec) no longer
exists; turning the Settings switch on or `desktop-entry` still points it
at this launcher, and HORIZON_LAUNCHER_DESKTOP_EXEC is still honored. A
test build started with the real HOME took over a working entry and then
left it broken when its target/ was deleted (2026-10-23).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Ludovic's decision (2026-10-23): no more Alpha and Stable. release.yml
publishes every game release as the release and GitHub's latest instead of
a pre-release that promote.yml made stable once a day. The checks that
gated a promotion run in the release itself: `decide` holds the train while
an issue labelled release-blocker is open (forced runs too), and the publish
job runs `release_train.py gate` right before publishing: the Mac mini's
smoke-test.json must be there and show a world was drawn, and no blocker may
be open. Otherwise nothing is published.
Notes cover everything since the last release that is not a pre-release, so
the first single-channel release lists all of it since v0.2.0. promote.yml,
tools/release_channels.py and its tests are deleted. The cadence is
unchanged (5 minutes of settling, 20 at most, release-now at once).
Docs and site: one channel in release-flow, versioning, security, the FAQ,
install, the home page and the Releases page (Game / Launcher filter); no
player-facing Alpha wording left.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
🤖 Agent: merged after verify passed and the agent-control-2 integration of all six PRs on the Mac mini. agent_control_e2e passes in CLI and MCP (one known survival flake), launcher_mcp_e2e passes, No AI is refused, and the options, screen_layout, menu_click and world_options parity harnesses pass. Ludovic asked for this on 2026-10-23.
🤖 Agent: merged after verify passed. Ludovic asked on 2026-10-23 for every hardware fact players send (opt-in). The end-to-end run against a local server is in the description: breakdowns need ≥3 installs, with no install ID or exact value. The consent version goes up to 2, so players who opted in are asked again, as the privacy page promises.
- The desktop measured: Horizon v2026.10.22.13 against vanilla 26.3 at render
distance 12 and 32, 3 runs each, 1280x720, VSync off, in a headless sway on
the RTX 4080 (never on its screen). Replaces the "not yet measured" note.
- /benchmarks shows each players' group's hardware split (RAM, VRAM, drive,
system, GPU kind) and, once the telemetry server has some, a "Players'
hardware" table from /v1/aggregate's breakdowns. Hidden without data.
- The picker takes the memory too. Players' groups whose installs have neither
the picked RAM nor the GPU's VRAM class count as further away, and the result
says what they had and when a game's peak memory is a large share of the RAM.
- Each GPU in the spec table has its memory (0: shared).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
website/docs/agents.md, in the nav under "Going further", is the player's page.
It covers what an agent can do, connecting it from the launcher, copy-paste
config for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and any MCP client, the game's AI Agent
page, a CLI quick reference, safety and No AI.
docs/agent-control.md is rewritten for developers:
- the surfaces, and why one MCP server covers the launcher and the game;
- the inventory, before and after, for the launcher and the game;
- No AI on every surface, and the launcher commands that stay;
- connecting from the launcher and the game;
- the design rules for a new command.
docs/launcher-commands.md lists every launcher command, its arguments and its
MCP tool. It is generated from the clap definition (cli_tools::markdown). The
launcher test the_launcher_reference_is_up_to_date fails when it is stale or a
tool is undocumented, like horizon-ctl's generated reference.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
What players send (opt-in, unchanged switches) now describes the whole machine:
CPU cores and base/boost clock, the GPU's maker, integrated or discrete and its
VRAM, the drive under the game folder (NVMe/SSD/HDD), the screen (size, refresh,
scale), on battery or mains, laptop or desktop. Perf, crash and bug items carry
them in `system`; benchmark reports in `hardware`. No serials, host or user
names, or paths. CONSENT_VERSION goes to 2, so players are asked again.
The server keeps the new fields in `systems.extra` (the table is rebuilt once
on old databases, ids kept). /v1/aggregate and /v1/benchmarks/summary add
breakdowns by RAM class, VRAM class, drive, OS and integrated/discrete GPU;
a class is published only with at least 3 different installs, never a raw value.
website/scripts/benchmarks.mjs mirrors the classes on the shared fixtures.
The summary's "not Horizon or plain vanilla" check returned None (accepted)
instead of the rejection; it now matches the site's script.
The launcher's "View what would be sent" and `data show` list every field.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
🤖 Agent: merged after verify passed and the integration run on the desktop (integ-w3: main + the mod browser stack + #1269; fmt, clippy, 1224 + 131 tests, mod_browser_harness ok).
🤖 Agent: merged after verify passed and the integration run on the desktop (integ-w3: main + the mod browser stack + #1269; fmt, clippy, 1224 + 131 tests, mod_browser_harness ok).
The home page's "At a glance" list gets a fifth row with how many play right now, read from
https://telemetry.playhorizon.dev/v1/live (3 s timeout, again every minute while the tab is
visible). It stays hidden while nobody plays or the server doesn't answer. The FAQ no longer
says the "I'm playing" ping is off: the server is live since #1276.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
🤖 Agent: merged after verify passed. telemetry.playhorizon.dev is live on Railway (service telemetry in horizon-site, volume /data): /healthz, /v1/live (a test ping counted) and /v1/benchmarks/summary (CORS for playhorizon.dev) answer. The PR's local end-to-end runs are in the description.
"Horizon 2026.10.22.07: #1255, mob pushes, fix, #1222" now shows "Single player runs in the frame again
until server players have vehicles and 3 more".
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- ThinkPad (i7-7500U, HD Graphics 620, Mesa): Horizon v2026.10.22.04 (two flights per scene) against vanilla
26.3 (two games) at render distance 12. Java loads chunks faster there and flies the mountain faster; the
page says so. Render distance 32 isn't published for it: neither game loaded the spawn in 5 minutes, and
Horizon kept only 900 to 1,400 columns resident when given 25.
- "Where Java is ahead" also lists scenes where vanilla's average beats Horizon's by more than 5%.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- DEFAULT_ENDPOINT is https://telemetry.playhorizon.dev. The heartbeat, the launcher's live count and the
outbox upload all go there; HORIZON_TELEMETRY_URL still names another server, and HORIZON_TELEMETRY_URL=off
sends nothing at all. CI workflows and the harnesses that start the game or the launcher set off. Consent
is unchanged: the four switches stay opt-in, only the anonymous ping is always on.
- GET /v1/benchmarks/summary: players' benchmark uploads grouped by GPU, CPU, render distance and game, groups
of 3+ installs only, medians per install then across installs, no install ID, day, OS version, driver,
memory or screen. Cached 10 minutes, CORS for the website. Same rules as website/scripts/benchmarks.mjs,
tested on the same fixtures; a deleted install leaves its groups at once.
- /v1/aggregate no longer lists the newest 50 raw benchmark reports (hardware, driver, day, one install each):
uploads are published only through the summary.
- Behind Railway's proxy the rate limit counts X-Real-IP, else the last X-Forwarded-For entry (the one the
proxy adds; a client could choose the first). Still in memory only, never stored or logged.
- crates/horizon-telemetry-server/railway.json: Dockerfile build from the repository root, health check
/healthz, one replica in europe-west4 (one SQLite file on the /data volume).
- Docs: docs/telemetry.md, the server README (the summary's shape, Railway setup), the privacy page (the ping
is on, where the data lives, how benchmark uploads are shown).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Three runs of each game at render distance 12 and 32 (tools/perf_bench.py, seed 1234, 1280x720, VSync off).
Horizon's average sits at the 144 Hz display (macOS presents in step with it even with VSync off): marked as
capped on the page.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- /releases: every game and launcher release on one page, newest first, Stable / Alpha / Launcher marked and
filterable. The newest three are open; each shows what it added and fixed, the full notes, its downloads and
a link to GitHub. Baked at build time, refreshed from GitHub when a newer release is out. /releases#release-<tag>
opens one.
- Home: "Recently added" replaces the patch notes block: the last five releases on one line each and three
highlights from what they added.
- /benchmarks: Horizon against vanilla Java Edition 26.3 measured on our machines (average FPS, 1% lows, p95
frame time, start to world, chunk loads, memory, at render distance 12 and 32), saying where Java is ahead;
a GPU + CPU picker that shows a measurement when there is one and otherwise a marked estimate with a range,
from our own spec table (method explained on the page); players' results read live from the telemetry
server's GET /v1/benchmarks/summary, falling back to the baked public/benchmarks.json, groups of 3+ installs
only.
- scripts/benchmarks.mjs builds public/benchmarks.json from our reports (and, for tests, telemetry items) with
the same rules as the server; fixtures shared with the server's test.
- Releases and Benchmarks in the nav and footer; docs/performance.md links the page.
- Pixelify Sans' "fi" ligature drew "fixes" as "Axes": common ligatures off.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Captured on the Mac mini with the game's offscreen capture (1280x720),
replacing the Horizon menu style's Video page.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The pause menu's Friends icon is recorded as a widget, so a controller
reaches it and the control socket names it. The sharing screen's long help
URL ran off the screen: a Troubleshooting... button beside Done opens it,
and the hint drops out when it would reach the footer. The graphics docs
say what the two Horizon screens hold (vanilla's own settings stay on Video
Settings).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Drop the Horizon menu style (options_horizon.rs, front.rs, the live title
backdrop and its post grade, the launcher's menu-style setting, CLI and MCP
tool). Every screen is vanilla's. Horizon's own settings hang off vanilla's
Options the way mods add theirs: Horizon Settings... and Mods... take the
Telemetry/Credits slots, and Horizon Settings opens Graphics, Advanced
Graphics, Shader Packs, Controller Settings, Extras and Mods, each a vanilla
options list with tooltips. Play with friends moves behind vanilla's Friends
buttons: the pause menu's opens Play with Friends (share, copy, stop), the
title screen's opens Join a Friend, and Direct Connection takes a full code.
Old files load as before: horizon.txt's menuStyle line and
horizon-graphics.txt's level line are ignored.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
🤖 Agent: merged after verify passed and the integration run on the desktop (main 34c3c1cf + the 14 contributor PRs: workspace tests 1,869/0, launcher 113, parity --changed 320/0).
horizon-theme gains the Blocks palettes (light and dark, WCAG AA on every panel and on the stone),
Pixelify Sans (OFL) and Pixelarticons (MIT); tokens.css now carries the Blocks colours, the pixel
font and the block edges. The site sets headings, navigation and buttons in Pixelify Sans, turns
the index lists into stacks of panels with an outline, a bevel and a lip, puts a stone texture
behind the page and Horizon's pixel landscape (a dawn or a sunset) behind the hero, both drawn in
code by scripts/art.mjs. Light and dark still follow the system, with the toggle.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Importing a modpack from the Mods page (or `mods install`) now ports it right away
for the selected version, so Play works straight after. port-pack leaves a
namespace two carried mods both claim to none of them (YUNG's mods all ship
`yungsapi`, which made the game drop three of them), and the launcher applies
the game's first-wins rule before it starts a pack, listing what it left off.
Measured on Vanilla Perfected, Slimes Adventure and All the Mods 10 (docs/modpacks.md):
2, 20 and 42 mods ported, every world loads, no crash.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Ludovic dropped CurseForge for now (its API needs a paid key). The Mods page shows
"CurseForge (coming soon)" beside the Modrinth switch, disabled and inert;
browser::sources() is Modrinth only, so no search or install goes to CurseForge,
and `--source curseforge` says it is coming soon. Text that asked for a key or
an environment variable now says CurseForge support is coming soon. Importing a
CurseForge zip or instance still works; jars only CurseForge serves are listed
as "CurseForge downloads coming soon".
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The Mods page gets a Mods tab: Fabric, NeoForge, Forge and Quilt mods for 26.3
(1.21 and later with Show everything). Each result's jar is downloaded (allowed
CDNs, checksum), checked with horizon-port-pack (Works, Partly, Doesn't run, with
what ports and what doesn't) and the answer cached per file. Install copies the
carry into horizon-mods/<id>/ and turns it on in horizon-mods.txt, with required
mods that port; libraries with nothing to port are listed as not ported; id or
namespace clashes are refused. Remove deletes it and turns it off.
The Modpacks page becomes the Mods page's Modpacks tab: imported packs first,
then the search. CLI: mods search --kind mod, mods check <project>.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The whole of Horizon is in beta, so the channel that installs every build as
soon as it is built is called Alpha; Stable keeps its name. The launcher's
Settings, the update-channel command, the MCP tool, the release notes footer
and the docs say Alpha. update_channel is saved as "alpha"; "nightly" and the
old beta_builds switch still read as Alpha.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The Mods page (launcher 0.17) replaces "a mod browser is planned"; the Horizon
shader format is no longer called planned; Nightly-only things say Nightly.
The "I'm playing" ping has no server (DEFAULT_ENDPOINT is None), so the FAQ and
the privacy page say it is off instead of sent. The channel switch says it
needs the launcher release after 0.17. The README says what deploys the site.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
On a Mac without a JDK, preparing failed with "Java 25 is needed ...
/usr/bin/javac -version printed no version: Unable to locate a Java
Runtime": /usr/bin/javac is macOS's placeholder. Mojang's Java runtimes
are whole JDKs, javac included (java-runtime-epsilon is 25.0.1 on every
platform), and the official launcher has already downloaded one for
anyone who played 26.3.
- horizon-prepare: java::find also tries Minecraft's runtimes
(<game dir>/runtime/<component>/<platform>/<component>, jre.bundle on
macOS) and the launcher's pick (Options::java_home), and names the
macOS placeholder for what it is.
- launcher: when no JDK is found, downloads the runtime the version JSON
names (javaVersion.component) from Mojang into its own game folder,
every file checked against its sha1, executables and links as the
official launcher lays them out. A version's own preparer binary or
Python script gets it through JAVA_HOME and the PATH.
Checked for real on Linux: the download is 147 files, its javac 25.0.1
compiles and runs a class with --release 25.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01AxbYUJt4ShJFCdyLNCxF21
The daily promotion moves to 20:00 UTC (21:00 in Paris in winter time):
PROMOTE_AT and promote.yml's cron (20:07, retries until 21:37), with the docs
that give the time. A launcher left open on Nightly looks for new releases
every 30 minutes; Stable keeps 4 hours. The launcher README's Settings
screenshot shows the Updates choice.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The launcher's "Beta builds" switch becomes an Updates choice of two channels,
stored as "update_channel": "stable" | "nightly" (an old "beta_builds": true
reads as nightly). The CLI (update-channel) and MCP (update_channel) show and
set it, and list each release's channel as stable or nightly.
Nightly ships constantly: the release train waits 5 minutes for a merge wave to
settle (20 at most) instead of 15 (an hour). Stable moves once a day:
promote.yml runs at 19:00 UTC (retries until 20:37) and promotes the newest beta
that had been out 6 hours by 19:00, so late runs and retries pick the same one.
The stalled-promotion issue waits 30 hours. Release notes, docs, the website's
install and FAQ pages say Stable and Nightly.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The game sends an anonymous ping once a minute while it runs (a random
session ID kept only in memory, the version, the platform, whether a LAN
or friends world is open). The telemetry server counts sessions seen in
the last 2 minutes, in memory only, with its own per-address rate limit
and a session cap, and serves rounded counts at GET /v1/live. The
launcher shows "N playing now" on the Play page when the count is
reachable, and tells players what the ping holds on the first-run
question, in Settings, and once on the Play page for players who
answered before. docs/telemetry.md and the privacy page say the same.
Like the rest of telemetry, nothing is sent until HORIZON_TELEMETRY_URL
is set or DEFAULT_ENDPOINT gets a server.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Ludovic Marie
Claude