Set up AcceptTheRules for Minecraft

AcceptTheRules makes new players read your server rules, one page at a time, and press Accept or Deny. You can reward acceptance with a command, hold players in place until they answer, and ask long-time players to accept again every few months. This guide installs it from the Plugins tab and sets up the options most servers change.

Checked against AcceptTheRules 11.1, whose Modrinth page lists Minecraft up to 26.2, October 2026. In a test it installed on Paper 26.3 and enabled.

What you need

• A Paper or Purpur server. AcceptTheRules 11.1 lists Paper, Purpur, Spigot and Bukkit on Modrinth.
• Nothing else is required. The author lists Floodgate as optional, for a menu that Bedrock players can use, and PlaceholderAPI as optional too.
• A second Minecraft account, or a friend, for testing. The author warns against testing as an operator, because the plugin has bypass permissions.

Install AcceptTheRules

1. Open your server and select Plugins.
2. Leave the source buttons on Modrinth, type AcceptTheRules and press Install. If your server runs a Minecraft version newer than 26.2, the search shows no results, because the plugin lists nothing newer. Press Show every version and the plugin appears.
3. Open the Console tab and press Restart (or Start if the server is off).
4. Once the server is up, the plugin creates an AcceptTheRules folder inside plugins with its configuration files.

Edit those files in the File Manager, then run /atr reload in game to apply the changes.

Write the rules and messages

The rules and the chat messages live in their own files inside plugins/AcceptTheRules. The rules file is rules.yml, and the welcome message is set in messages.yml. Colours use the usual & codes, and the author's page says the rules also accept Markdown.

Players see the rules a few at a time. In settings.yml, RulesPerPage sets how many appear on each page (4 by default) and RulesCooldown sets how many seconds a player must wait before Next works (3 by default), which stops people clicking straight through.

Choose what happens on Accept or Deny

settings.yml holds two command lists under Commands: AcceptedExecutes and DenyExecutes. The console runs each command, so the player needs no permission for it, and %player% is replaced with their name. For example, to hand out food on acceptance:

Commands:
  AcceptedExecutes:
  - give %player% bread 5

Add %asPlayer% at the end of a command to run it as the player instead. To rank someone up on acceptance, you can put your permissions plugin's command in the same list, since the console runs each command and LuckPerms takes commands from the console (Set up LuckPerms on your Minecraft server covers one).

Hold players until they have read the rules

These switches are all false by default:

• Freeze: Enable holds the player in place.
• Prevent: Chat, Prevent: Commands and Prevent: Interact block chatting, commands and touching the world. The commands listed under AllowedCommands, such as rules, stay usable.
• Period: Enable, with Days: 90, makes everyone accept again after that many real-life days.

Set what you want, save, and run /atr reload.

Admin commands

• /rules shows the rules, and /rules 3 shows rule 3.
• /atr opens the admin menu with every command.
• /atr <player> shows whether a player accepted and which version.
• /atr reset <player> clears a player's accepted status, so they see the rules again. This is the quickest way to retest.
• /atraccept <player> accepts the rules on a player's behalf.
• /atr stats shows some user statistics.

Only operators can use /atr by default, through the atr.admin.atr permission. Give atr.user.bypass to anyone who should skip the re-acceptance period.

If something goes wrong

• Nothing changed after an edit. Run /atr reload, or restart from the Console tab.
• The plugin won't load. Check the Console for a YAML error and compare indentation with the lines around it. Find and fix YAML and JSON config errors shows how.
• You need help from the author. /atr report writes Report.zip into plugins/AcceptTheRules, which you can download from the File Manager and send to them.