How to use the agent in Minecraft: Education Edition

A helpful little mob that can help Minecraft players learn about the world and applications of coding, the agent is programmable in a number of different ways and can carry out multiple tasks assigned to it.

The agent is normally available on Minecraft: Education Edition and Bedrock Edition worlds connected to a WebSocket server. In Bedrock Edition, even if the world isn't connected to WebSocket servers, it can still store items given to it by the player. The agent is also spawnable via the command "/give @s spawn_egg 1 56" if players have cheats enabled.

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Minecraft: Coding instructions into the agent

The agent allows players to learn some limited coding capabilities by feeding the mob instructions (Image via Mojang).

The agent mob in Minecraft spawns by default with no AI, but it is capable of carrying out rudimentary tasks such as mining, harvesting and planting crops, chopping trees, or building.

In Minecraft Education Edition specifically, the mob is used in lockstep with a game extension known as "Code Connection for Minecraft," which allows educators to demonstrate to students how coding syntax is built and executed to perform commands for computers.

By dragging and dropping commands and certain syntax inputs, the agent can carry out tasks that players have established for them.

At the moment, the available commands to drag/drop for the agent are as follows:

• Attack
• Destroy
• Drop
• Drop All
• Turn
• Move
• Inspect
• Inspect Data
• Detect
• Detectredstone
• Create Agent
• Remove Agent
• Transfer
• Teleport to Player
• Teleport to Location Facing Direction
• Place
• Place on Move
• Collect
• Till
• Get Item Count
• Get Item Space
• Get Item Detail

Players are also capable of inputting context for the commands, such as directions, specific inventory slots, and true/false arguments.

By opening Code Connector in a separate window, Minecraft players can select a visual coding editor from a list including Tynker, Microsoft MakeCode, and Code.org and then return to the game and begin working on their agent.

By following the in-game tutorial's prompts, players will learn the basics of making the agent move, interact with blocks, create and destroy objects, and automate the harvesting of materials. Minecraft players can even instruct the agent to help build a basic survival shelter.

Simply by using the Code Connector's simple interface, the agent's AI is capable of many tasks that can shorten work time for players significantly, giving them opportunities to focus on other tasks.