Tutorial: Recurring Announcements

In this tutorial you will create a countdown that resets automatically every two hours and shows a chat message warning players about an upcoming server event. This uses the clock-aligned recurring mode.

Time to complete: about 10 minutes.

What clock-aligned recurring means

A clock-aligned recurring countdown fires at fixed intervals anchored to the clock. With align_interval: 2h and timezone: UTC the countdown fires at 00:00, 02:00, 04:00 … UTC. When the current cycle ends, the next one starts automatically.

This is useful for:

Regular server events (reset, boss spawn, shop refresh).
Reminders that repeat on a predictable schedule.
Server-rule announcements.

Step 1 - Create the countdown

/countdown create server_reset recurring 0 0 00:00 --align-to-clock --align-interval 2h --timezone UTC --missed-run-policy SKIP

The recurring 0 0 00:00 part (month=0, day=0, time=00:00) is a placeholder required by the parser when --align-to-clock is used; the actual firing times come from --align-interval.

Step 2 - Verify it was created

/countdown info server_reset

The output should show align_to_clock: true, align_interval: 2h, and timezone: UTC.

Step 3 - Customise in `countdowns.yml`

Open plugins/EzCountdown/countdowns.yml and update the entry:

countdowns:
  server_reset:
    type: RECURRING
    align_to_clock: true
    align_interval: "2h"
    timezone: "UTC"
    missed_run_policy: SKIP
    display:
      types:
        - CHAT
        - ACTION_BAR
      update-interval: 60           # update every 60 s (low priority display)
    messages:
      format: "<gray>Next server reset in</gray> <white>{formatted}</white>"
      start: "<aqua>Server reset cycle started.</aqua>"
      end: "<red>Server reset in progress! Returning in 30 seconds...</red>"
    commands_on_end:
      - "broadcast Server reset complete!"

Step 4 - Reload

/countdown reload

The countdown will fire chat reminders at each two-hour mark.

Step 5 - Test with a shorter interval

While testing you may want to use a shorter interval to verify it works. Change align_interval to 5m in countdowns.yml, reload, and watch the chat messages appear. Change it back to 2h when done.

Missed-run policies

If your server was offline when a cycle was due:

Policy	Behaviour
`SKIP`	Skip the missed cycles and wait for the next scheduled time
`RUN_SINGLE`	Run one missed cycle immediately on startup
`RUN_ALL`	Run all missed cycles back-to-back on startup

SKIP is safe for most scenarios. Use RUN_SINGLE if you want the end commands to always fire at least once after a restart.

Next steps

Combine with teleport to move players to an arena when the countdown ends.
Add a Discord webhook to post the reset notification to a staff channel.
See the full Countdown Types reference for all recurring options.