PlaceholderAPI
Unified placeholder system with thousands of expansions. Allows plugins to share placeholders like player name, balance and stats.
AdminWhat is PlaceholderAPI?
PlaceholderAPI (PAPI) is the universal variable system for Bukkit servers. It defines a placeholder syntax like %player_name% or %vault_eco_balance% that any compatible plugin can output and any compatible plugin can display, so a scoreboard plugin can show a value owned by an economy plugin without the two knowing about each other. Individual data sources are added as expansions, most downloaded on demand from the eCloud with one command. It is a pure utility — invisible to players but a hard dependency for a huge share of display, chat and GUI plugins.
Who it's for: Effectively required on any server using scoreboards, tab-list customisation, custom GUIs, hologram text or chat formatting that needs to show live data. Installed for what depends on it, not for itself. It is built and maintained by HelpChat and sits in the admin category.
Key features of PlaceholderAPI
- Unified placeholder format
- Thousands of expansions
- Cloud-based expansion download
- JavaScript placeholders
- Relational placeholders
- Custom placeholder creation
- Bracket and percent formats
How to install PlaceholderAPI
PlaceholderAPI runs on Bukkit, Spigot or Paper servers. HelpChat maintains PlaceholderAPI for current Spigot/Paper versions; a single recent build covers a wide version range because it deals in text, not world mechanics.
- 1Stop your server, or have it ready to restart. Always back up your world and plugins folder before adding a new plugin.
- 2Download PlaceholderAPI.jar (a build matching your server version) and place it in your server's /plugins folder.
- 3PlaceholderAPI has no required dependencies, so it runs on its own once the jar is in place.
- 4Start the server fully. PlaceholderAPI generates its configuration files on first launch — stop the server, edit them to taste, then start again.
- 5Confirm it loaded by checking the console for PlaceholderAPI on startup, or by running one of its commands in-game.
Note: Drop PlaceholderAPI.jar into /plugins and restart. By itself it exposes only basic server and player placeholders — install the expansions you need with /papi ecloud download <name> (requires outbound internet) or place expansion jars in the expansions folder, then /papi reload.
PlaceholderAPI commands and permissions
Main commands
/papi parse- Parses placeholders for a player so you can test exactly what a placeholder resolves to.
/papi ecloud download- Downloads a placeholder expansion (for example Vault, Player, Server) from the cloud repository.
/papi reload- Reloads PlaceholderAPI and re-registers expansions.
Permission nodes
placeholderapi.admin- Grants access to all PlaceholderAPI management commands.
placeholderapi.ecloud- Allows downloading and managing expansions from the eCloud.
PlaceholderAPI FAQ
What is a placeholder expansion?
An expansion is a module that teaches PlaceholderAPI a set of placeholders for a particular data source — for example the Vault expansion adds economy and rank placeholders, the Player expansion adds player stats. You install only the expansions whose placeholders you actually use.
A placeholder shows as raw text instead of a value. Why?
Three common causes: the expansion that owns that placeholder is not installed (download it with /papi ecloud download), the plugin displaying the text does not run it through PlaceholderAPI, or you typed the identifier wrong. Test the exact placeholder with /papi parse me <placeholder>.
How do I install the Vault placeholders?
Run /papi ecloud download Vault, then /papi reload. This requires Vault and an economy/permissions plugin to be present so there is data to read. After that, placeholders like %vault_eco_balance% and %vault_prefix% resolve correctly.
Does PlaceholderAPI do anything on its own?
Only a small set of built-in server and player placeholders. Its real value comes from being the shared standard that other plugins read from and write to. It is installed because scoreboard, tab, GUI and chat plugins depend on it, not as a feature plugin.
Do I need internet access for PlaceholderAPI?
Only to download expansions from the eCloud with the ecloud command. If your server is offline, you can place expansion jars manually into the PlaceholderAPI/expansions folder and they load on the next reload without any internet connection.
Features
- Unified placeholder format
- Thousands of expansions
- Cloud-based expansion download
- JavaScript placeholders
- Relational placeholders
- Custom placeholder creation
- Bracket and percent formats
Commands
/papi parse/papi ecloud download/papi ecloud list/papi info/papi reloadPermissions
placeholderapi.adminplaceholderapi.ecloud