Installation and first start

Requirements: Paper 26.2, Java 25. Hydrogen does not support Spigot or older Paper releases.

1. Obtain the reviewed Hydrogen-1.2.0-paper-26.2.jar artifact from an authorized distribution channel.
2. Verify its SHA-256 checksum against the downloads page.
3. Place the JAR in your Paper server's plugins/ directory and start the server.
4. Hydrogen generates plugins/Hydrogen/config.yml, language.yml, rules.yml, filter.yml, and the data/ folder.
5. The initial default rank is created automatically. Configure server.name and restart.
6. Assign trusted administrator permissions through operator access or appropriate ranks.

File storage is selected automatically on a fresh install. No database or Redis service is required.

Hydrogen blocks player logins until profile storage loads. If startup fails, look for Hydrogen startup failed in the console and fix storage configuration before restarting.

Do not use an original- shaded-build JAR; it is missing bundled dependencies.

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