Update order
Updated Jan 03, 2026
Definition
Update order is the order in which Minecraft will process actions. Because Minecraft is a software program, actions that appear to occur simultaneously must occur sequentially one after another in some way. For designs using redstone which activates on the same tick, the behavior of a circuit depends on which activates first, in other words, update order.
Details
- The default update order is West, East, Down, Up, North, South. See
NeighborUpdater.UPDATE_ORDER. - Redstone dust has random/locational redstone update order, but deterministic shape updates. So powering something with dust will have locational order (avoid!!), but observing a dust wire with an observer will have consistent source to sink order (fine).
- Powered and activator rails have directional redstone update order, it is source to sink in the north-south axis, and is sink to source in the east-west axis. Shape updates are consistently sink to source (opposite of dust).
- Pistons have block event delay, which means adding a piston to logic will often mean the next thing the piston triggers will update last.
- Repeaters and comparators have different tile tick priority depending on the block it is pointed to.