LuckPerms Guide: Groups, Ranks and Commands

Install LuckPerms and give yourself access

1. Download the right build from luckperms.net — Bukkit for Paper and Spigot, or the Fabric, NeoForge or Velocity build for those platforms. It needs Java 11 or newer, which every current server has.
2. Put the jar in plugins (or mods on Fabric and NeoForge), remove any other permissions plugin, and restart the server fully.
3. Give yourself access from the console. At first nobody can use LuckPerms commands, not even you:

lp user YourName permission set luckperms.* true

From then on you can use /lp in game. On the first start LuckPerms downloads a few libraries, so the server needs internet access.

Groups, inheritance, weight and tracks

• Permission nodes are the keys, such as essentials.home or minecraft.command.gamemode. Each one can be true, false or not set.
• Groups hold permissions. Every player is in default; you add the rest.
• Inheritance: a group can have parent groups and gets everything they have. If admin inherits mod, and mod inherits default, admins have all three.
• Weight decides which group wins when two disagree — the higher number wins. Steps of 100 leave room for groups you add later.
• Tracks are promotion ladders, such as default → helper → mod → admin, used with promote and demote. They do not change inheritance on their own.
• Contexts limit a permission to a server or world, for example world=survival at the end of a command.

A ready-made player, moderator and admin setup

Create the groups, chain them, and give each the permissions it needs. The node names below are for EssentialsX commands; swap in the nodes of the plugins you use.

lp creategroup mod
lp creategroup admin
lp group mod parent add default
lp group admin parent add mod
lp group mod setweight 100
lp group admin setweight 200

lp group default permission set essentials.home true
lp group default permission set essentials.sethome true
lp group default permission set essentials.spawn true
lp group default permission set essentials.tpa true
lp group default permission set essentials.tpaccept true
lp group default permission set essentials.msg true

lp group mod permission set essentials.kick true
lp group mod permission set essentials.mute true
lp group mod permission set essentials.tempban true

lp group admin permission set essentials.* true
lp group admin permission set luckperms.* true

lp user Steve parent add mod

Then a track for promotions:

lp createtrack staff
lp track staff append default
lp track staff append mod
lp track staff append admin

lp user Steve promote staff moves Steve one step up. The full EssentialsX command and node list is in the EssentialsX guide.

Prefixes and ranks in chat

Set a prefix on a group:

lp group admin meta setprefix "&c[Admin] "

LuckPerms stores the prefix; a chat plugin has to show it. Install Vault and a chat plugin that reads from it, such as EssentialsX Chat. If players have several groups, the prefix with the highest priority is used — set it with meta setprefix 100 "...".

The LuckPerms web editor

For bigger changes, the editor is easier than commands. Run /lp editor, open the link it prints, and edit groups, users and tracks in your browser. When you save, the editor shows a command — run it in game or in the console, and the changes apply. Nothing changes on the server until you run that command.

LuckPerms commands you will use

Not sure which node a command needs? Run /lp verbose record, use the command as the player, then /lp verbose upload — the report shows every permission that was checked.

LuckPerms on a HytHost server or network

• Install by uploading the jar to plugins in the file manager or over SFTP, then restart from the panel. Run the first lp user ... luckperms.* command in the Console tab.
• One server: the default H2 storage is fine.
• A network: install LuckPerms on the proxy and on every backend, and point all of them at the same MySQL database with storage-method: mysql in config.yml. Every HytHost Minecraft plan includes MySQL databases; setting up the proxy itself is covered in how to set up a Velocity proxy.