BitCraftPublic: the server half of an MMORPG, without the client

Half a game: the client and connection tools are missing

The first thing the README establishes is scope. This repository contains the server side code for BitCraft, a community sandbox MMORPG developed by Clockwork Labs, and it includes game logic, state management and server side systems, but it does not yet include the client or the tools required to connect to the official game. That constraint has a direct effect on what you can do with it. You cannot point this code at the live world, and the README says so in plain terms near the end: the repository is not connected to the live game infrastructure and any changes here will not affect the official servers, which continue to be operated by Clockwork Labs. For a reader, the practical framing is that this is a research and experimentation artefact first and a contribution target second, not a deployable game server that would put you in competition with the official one.

The world state lives in SpacetimeDB tables

The architectural decision is stated in one sentence and it explains almost everything about the code. The BitCraft server is built on SpacetimeDB, a real-time, reactive backend platform designed for multiplayer game development, and it is structured as a SpacetimeDB module in which all the data is stored in spacetimeDB tables and all the logic runs inside reducers. That is a different shape from a typical request and response game server, where a tick loop mutates entities in memory and a database persists them periodically. Here the state is the database and the reducers are the transaction boundary, so an action from a player is a reducer call that reads and writes tables, and other clients observe the resulting changes reactively. The source code for SpacetimeDB itself is also on GitHub under the same organisation, and the README suggests starting with the SpacetimeDB documentation if you want to run a minimal version locally.

Apache 2.0 with use restrictions layered on top

The licence section is more interesting than a single line, because the README adds a plain language summary of what is allowed and what is not. The code is Apache 2.0, and the LICENSE file holds the details, but the summary reads like a set of conditions on top of the licence. You can read and study the code, modify and experiment locally, run your own servers for experimentation, use it as a reference, and make a game similar to BitCraft with your own intellectual property, art and themes on this code as a basis. You cannot use BitCraft art, game content, music or other protected assets, cannot use the IP or present forks as official, cannot operate official, unofficial, private or otherwise competing BitCraft servers, and cannot share information about discovered exploits with anyone other than the project. The licence applies only to the contents of this repository and does not extend to other assets or code outside BitCraftPublic, with more detail in NOTICE. This is not legal advice, but the practical shape is a permissive open source licence paired with use restrictions for a live product, and the restriction against competing servers is the clause to read first.

Exploits are reported privately and rewarded

The README handles security issues the way a live game has to, not the way a library would. Players are asked to submit exploit reports privately through a form rather than a public issue, and the reason given is speed and protection: to ensure exploits are addressed quickly and not abused by other players. Accounts that report a meaningful, previously unreported and verified exploit receive a unique in-game reward that cannot be obtained through normal gameplay. That is a reporting incentive rather than a legal safe harbour, and it comes with an obligation, since the licence summary says you cannot share information about discovered exploits with anyone other than the project. The repository carries a SECURITY.md at the root, which is where the process is documented in more detail than the README manages.

Run your own server instead of touching the live one

There are two realistic paths for someone who wants to use this code, and they differ more than a README usually admits. The first is to stand up your own instance of the server locally and experiment with it, which the README explicitly permits, and for that the guidance is to start from the SpacetimeDB documentation rather than from this repository. The second is to contribute changes upstream, and for that CONTRIBUTING.md holds the scope and process, with the README saying contributions that improve correctness, stability or player experience are welcome. What is explicitly off the table is trying to compete with the official deployment. There is no middle option where your fork quietly serves players, and the reward for contributing upstream rather than forking commercially is that the upstream path is the one where the project can accept and ship your work.

What the repository actually contains

The tree is small, which matches the phase one framing. At the top level there is BitCraftServer/, which is the server module itself, plus CONTRIBUTING.md, LICENSE, NOTICE, SECURITY.md and README.md. There is also a file called.bitcraft-source-sha, which by its name records the source revision it was taken from, and an images/ directory holding the logo and social assets used by the README. The repository is written primarily in Rust, and the game it serves is described as having no fixed classes or roles, where players build, craft, explore, trade and govern together in a procedurally generated world. There are no GitHub releases, so there is no tagged artefact to install and no changelog to diff, and the last push was on 2026-10-22 on the master branch.

Editorial conclusion

Adopt BitCraftPublic if you want to study how a live cooperative MMORPG is written against a reactive backend, if you plan to run a personal server for experimentation, or if you intend to build a similar game with your own art on this code as a foundation. Do not adopt it to host a competing BitCraft service, since the README lists that explicitly as not allowed, and do not adopt it expecting to affect the live game, because the repository states it is not connected to the live game infrastructure. Verify first that you understand the SpacetimeDB model of tables and reducers, which is what the entire server is written in, read NOTICE alongside LICENSE because the licence summary in the README adds use restrictions on top of Apache 2.0, and check CONTRIBUTING.md for the scope of changes the project will accept.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. clockworklabs/BitCraftPublic on GitHub
2. Issues
3. License: Apache-2.0
4. Project website
5. README