Ludovic Marie
0e65e85878
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>
34 lines
3.1 KiB
Markdown
34 lines
3.1 KiB
Markdown
# What Horizon is
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Horizon is Minecraft: Java Edition 26.3 rewritten in Rust. You install it with a small launcher, and it runs on the game files from your own copy of Minecraft. It is free, open source and unofficial.
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## In one minute
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- **A new game program, not a mod.** Horizon is written from scratch in Rust. It reads the same worlds, plays by the same rules and generates the same terrain as the Java game.
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- **Checked against vanilla.** {{HARNESSES}} automated tests ("harnesses") feed the same inputs to Horizon and to the real game, then compare the results. Today every subsystem matches in every harness that compares it. That is {{PERCENT}} of what the harnesses compare, which is not proof that nothing else differs. The [status table](/#parity) lists what is covered.
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- **Light and fast.** It starts quickly, uses little memory and draws efficiently. See [Performance](/docs/performance) for what is measured and what is not.
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- **A few things vanilla doesn't have.** Its own settings, added to vanilla's menus the way mods add theirs, graphics presets, distant terrain, controller support, optional extras such as zoom, a minimap and dynamic lights, an invite code to play your world with friends, and a server you can run without Java.
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## What Horizon is not
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- **Not Minecraft itself.** Horizon contains no Minecraft code, assets or data, and it never downloads them. You need your own legally obtained copy of Minecraft: Java Edition 26.3. Horizon builds its game files from that copy, on your computer.
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- **Not a place where Java mods run.** Forge, NeoForge, Fabric and Quilt mod jars do **not** work in Horizon, and neither do Mixins. Horizon has its own mod system, and the launcher can port some Java mods' content. See [Mods and data packs](/docs/mods) and [Modpacks](/docs/modpacks).
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- **Not for other versions.** Horizon plays Java Edition 26.3. Worlds from older versions (1.8 to 26.2) are upgraded the way vanilla upgrades them.
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- **Not an official Minecraft product.** It is not approved by or associated with Mojang or Microsoft.
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- **Not able to sign in to a Microsoft account yet.** Until it can, Horizon cannot join servers that check accounts. See [Multiplayer](/docs/multiplayer).
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## Supported systems
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- **Linux, x86-64.** A graphics card with Vulkan drivers. Builds are made on Ubuntu 22.04, so use a distribution at least that recent.
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- **macOS, Apple Silicon.** Any M1 or newer, on macOS 11 or later.
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- **Windows, x64.** Vulkan or DirectX 12. Horizon picks DirectX 12 by itself when Vulkan does not work.
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There is no build for Intel Macs, 32-bit systems, or ARM Linux and Windows. The server can be built from source on other systems.
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## Where to go next
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- **Playing:** [install and first launch](/docs/install), [settings worth knowing](/docs/settings), [multiplayer](/docs/multiplayer) and [what to do when something breaks](/docs/troubleshooting).
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- **Hosting:** [host a server](/docs/hosting), from the launcher or the command line.
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- **Going further:** [modpacks](/docs/modpacks), [mods and data packs](/docs/mods) and [performance](/docs/performance).
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- **Helping out:** [contribute](/docs/contributing) and the [FAQ](/docs/faq).
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