Guides / Commands & Data

Bossbars and titles: persistent state, timings, and the value/max split

A bossbar survives restarts and a title does not. Here is the create-then-modify pattern, the fade timings people set backwards, and how to drive a progress bar.

2026-06-19

Both draw text on screen and that is where the similarity ends. Titles are fire-and-forget; bossbars are persistent objects you have to manage.

Bossbars are stateful

/bossbar add my:timer {"text":"Time left"}
/bossbar set my:timer players @a
/bossbar set my:timer max 600
/bossbar set my:timer value 600
/bossbar set my:timer color red
/bossbar set my:timer style notched_10

An id, then commands that modify it. Points people trip on:

• The bar is invisible until it has players. Creating one and never running

set ... players produces nothing, with no error.

• It persists in the world save. A bar created for a minigame is still there next

session. /bossbar remove when finished, or they accumulate.

• value and max are separate, and the bar shows value / max. Setting only

value on a bar whose max is still 100 gives nonsense fill.

Colours: pink white red orange yellow green blue purple. Styles: progress notched_6 notched_10 notched_12 notched_20.

Driving a countdown

/bossbar set my:timer value 599

once per second from a repeating function is the whole mechanism. There is no built-in timer. Reading it back is useful too:

/execute store result score @s Left run bossbar get my:timer value

bossbar get supports value, max, players and visible, which makes a bossbar a workable global variable when you want the player to see it.

Titles are transient

/title @a times 10 70 20
/title @a subtitle {"text":"Get ready"}
/title @a title {"text":"Round 2"}

Three things in that order, and the order matters:

1. times first. Setting it after the title has no effect on the title already shown.
2. subtitle before title. The subtitle alone displays nothing; sending the title

is what triggers the pair to appear. Reversed, the first one shows with no subtitle.

times is fadeIn stay fadeOut in ticks — 20 ticks per second. 10 70 20 is half a second in, three and a half held, one out. People set 1 1 1 and wonder why nothing appears: three ticks total is a flash.

actionbar is separate

/title @a actionbar {"text":"Saved"}

The line above the hotbar. It ignores times entirely — it shows for a fixed couple of seconds and fades. Re-sending it every tick keeps it up permanently, which is the standard way to run a custom HUD.

Clearing

/title @a clear removes what is showing; /title @a reset also restores default timings. For bossbars, /bossbar set my:timer visible false hides without destroying state.

Build bossbar, title, and the rest of the control and debug commands from a form in the Advanced Command Builder — Control & Debug.

Open the Advanced Command Builder — Control & Debug →