Watchdog Essentials

Watchdog Essentials (WE) is a server-side addon for Operate My Server (OMS) that adds automatic server monitoring and condition-based lifecycle actions.

Use Watchdog Essentials if you want your modded Minecraft server to react automatically to problems such as prolonged low TPS, critically low memory, or an empty server.

Each watchdog works as an independent feature and integrates directly with OMS restart and shutdown handling.

Lightweight, modular, and focused on server health monitoring.

What it does

• Detects prolonged low TPS
• Monitors available memory
• Detects when the server stays empty
• Can request restart or shutdown actions through OMS
• Provides memory monitoring and diagnostic commands
• Allows every watchdog feature to be configured, enabled, or disabled independently

Watchdog Essentials extends OMS with condition-based triggers while OMS remains responsible for centralized lifecycle handling.

Features

Low TPS

Monitors the server's average TPS over a configurable period.

If TPS remains below the configured threshold long enough, Watchdog Essentials can request a server restart through OMS.

Useful for detecting prolonged server performance degradation automatically.

Low Memory

Monitors available JVM memory and detects sustained low-memory conditions.

When memory reaches a critical level, the watchdog can:

• restart the server
• shut it down
• take no automatic action

It also includes optional diagnostics such as heap dumps and memory reports.

Empty Server

Tracks how long the server has been running without players.

After the configured timeout, Watchdog Essentials can automatically shut down the server or request a restart.

Useful for private servers, development servers, and other setups where keeping an unused server running is unnecessary.

Requirements

Server-side mod (client not required)

• Minecraft 1.20.1
• Forge 47.4.0+
• Operate My Server
• KotlinForForge 4.11.0

Installation

Download:

Watchdog Essentials

• CurseForge
• Modrinth
• OMS Maven

Operate My Server

• CurseForge
• Modrinth
• OMS Maven

Kotlin For Forge 4.11.0

• CurseForge
• Modrinth

Required files:

• oms-x.y.z.jar
• watchdogessentials-x.y.z.jar
• kotlinforforge-4.11.0.jar

Place them into your server's mods/ folder.

Start the server normally - Watchdog Essentials will register its features automatically through OMS.

For automatic restart functionality, run the server through the provided OMS restart script. OMS handles the controlled shutdown and restart request, while the script starts the Java process again. See the Restart Script Setup

Basic usage

View available OMS features:

/oms feature

Enable or disable a Watchdog Essentials feature:

/oms feature <feature> enable
/oms feature <feature> disable

Watchdog Essentials also provides commands for memory monitoring and diagnostics.

Config

Watchdog Essentials config:

world/serverconfig/watchdogessentials-server.toml

Each watchdog has its own configuration section with thresholds, timing, actions, warnings, and other feature-specific options.

Documentation

Full configuration reference, commands, examples, and feature documentation are available on the OMS Wiki