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Managing Nests & Eggs

Nests and Eggs are the core of how Pterodactyl handles different types of game servers. Understanding how to manage them allows you to customize and expand the games you can offer.

Understanding Nests and Eggs

What is a Nest?

A Nest is a logical grouping for all the different variations of a single game or service. For example, Minecraft would be a Nest containing all the different Minecraft server types you offer — Vanilla, Forge, Paper, and so on.

What is an Egg?

An Egg is the specific configuration for one type of server within a Nest. It contains everything Pterodactyl needs to run that server: the installation script, the start command, and the variables users can configure.

Each Egg includes:

→Installation script — runs automatically when a new server is created
→Start command — the command used to launch the game server process
→Variables — configurable options for users, such as server name, world seed, or RCON password

How to Import a New Egg

Pterodactyl ships with a set of official Eggs, but the community provides hundreds more for different games and server types. A popular source for community-maintained Eggs is the Parkervcp GitHub repository.

1.Find and download the .json file for the Egg you want to import
2.Log in to your panel with an administrator account and go to the Admin Area
3.Click Nests in the sidebar
4.Select the Nest you want to add the Egg to (e.g. Minecraft), or create a new Nest if needed
5.At the bottom of the page, click Import Egg
6.Upload the .json file and click Import — the new Egg will now be available for server deployments

Managing Egg Variables

Each Egg has a Variables tab where you can configure the options presented to users when they create a new server. This allows you to control exactly what settings are available and how they behave.

Name & Description
Customize the label and help text shown to users for each variable.
Default Values
Set a sensible default so users don't have to fill in every field from scratch.
Validation Rules
Require a specific data type (e.g. number only), or limit the length of a text input.
Required / Optional
Mark variables as required or optional depending on whether they are critical for the server to function.

Further Documentation

For a full list of official Eggs and advanced configuration options, refer to the Pterodactyl documentation and community resources.

Pterodactyl Egg Docs

Community Eggs on GitHub