Entity Family

An entity's family is like a tag that helps group similar entities together and is defined by the minecraft: type_family component. For example, skeletons, zombies, and creepers are all a part of the monster family.

Entities can have more than one family, which will become important later.

Customize Behavior with Entity Families

So what can we do with family tags? At a basic level, we can use family tags as an attribute for target selection. Using the family argument after a target selector will allow us to specify which families to target for a specific behavior. For example, we can use the @e family=monster selector and our entity will only target entities that are alive and have the monster family tag. This is a broad filter and works great if you want to create a player companion entity that will help fight off enemies, but you can also get more specific.

For example, you could create a UFO entity that only abducts cows! Or you could create a hoglin nanny that protects and brings food to hoglin babies, but not adult hoglins! Because entities can have multiple family tags you can get very specific when using tags and create really interesting behaviors.

For more information on how to use components to affect entity behavior, see Entity Behavior Introduction.

List of Entity Families

Here's a list of the current shared entity families in Minecraft Bedrock Edition:

Family	Entities in this Family
armorer	Villager, Zombie Villager
arthropod	Bee, Cave Spider, Endermite, Silverfish, Spider
butcher	Villager, Zombie Villager
lightweight	Endermite, Fox, Rabbit, Silverfish
cartographer	Villager, Zombie Villager
cleric	Villager, Zombie Villager
farmer	Villager, Zombie Villager
fisherman	Villager, Zombie Villager
fletcher	Villager, Zombie Villager
monster	Blaze, Cave Spider, Creeper, Drowned, Elder Guardian, Enderman, Endermite, Evoker, Ghast, Guardian, Husk, Magma Cube, Phantom, Piglin, Piglin Brute, Pillager, Ravager, Shulker, Silverfish, Skeleton, Slime, Spider, Stray, Vex, Vindicator, Warden, Witch, Wither, Wither Skeleton, Zombie, Zombie Pigman, Zombie Villager
illager	Evoker, Pillager, Ravager, Vindicator
inanimate	Armor Stand, Boat, Camera, Minecart, Minecart with Chest, Minecart with Command Block, Minecart with Hopper, Minecart with TNT, TNT
leatherworker	Villager, Zombie Villager
librarian	Villager, Zombie Villager
stone_mason	Villager, Zombie Villager
minecart	Minecart, Minecart with Chest, Minecart with Command Block, Minecart with Hopper, Minecart with TNT
mob	Allay, Armor Stand, Axolotl, Bat, Bee, Blaze, Camera, Cat, Cave Spider, Chicken, Cow, Creeper, Dolphin, Elder Guardian, Ender Dragon, Enderman, Endermite, Evoker, Fox, Frog, Ghast, Glow Squid, Guardian, Hoglin, Horse, Husk, Iron Golem, Llama, Magma Cube, Mooshroom, Mule, NPC, Ocelot, Panda, Parrot, Phantom, Pig, Pillager, Polar Bear, Rabbit, Ravager, Sheep, Shulker, Silverfish, Skeleton, Skeleton Horse, Slime, Snow Golem, Spider, Squid, Stray, Strider, Tadpole, Turtle, Vex, Villager, Vindicator, Wandering Trader, Warden, Witch, Wither, Wither Skeleton, Wolf, Zoglin, Zombie, Zombie Horse, Zombie Pigman, Zombie Villager
nitwit	Villager, Zombie Villager
piglin	Piglin, Piglin Brute
shepherd	Villager, Zombie Villager
skeleton	Skeleton, Stray, Wither, Wither Skeleton
fish	Cod, Pufferfish, Salmon, Tropical Fish
squid	Glow Squid, Squid
toolsmith	Villager, Zombie Villager
undead	Drowned, Husk, Phantom, Skeleton, Skeleton Horse, Stray, Wither, Wither Skeleton, Zoglin, Zombie, Zombie Horse, Zombie Pigman, Zombie Villager
weaponsmith	Villager, Zombie Villager
wither	Wither, Wither Skeleton
zombie	Drowned, Husk, Zombie, Zombie Villager

The following entity families only contain one entity, but they may be expanded in later releases as we add new entities to Minecraft:

Family	Entities in this Family
allay	Allay
armor_stand	Armor Stand
axolotl	Axolotl
bat	Bat
bee	Bee
blaze	Blaze
boat	Boat
cat	Cat
cavespider	Cave Spider
chicken	Chicken
cod	Cod
cow	Cow
creeper	Creeper
dolphin	Dolphin
donkey	Donkey
dragon	Ender Dragon
drowned	Drowned
enderman	Enderman
endermite	Endermite
evocation_illager	Evoker
fox	Fox
frog	Frog
ghast	Ghast
goat	Goat
guardian	Guardian
guardian_elder	Elder Guardian
hoglin	Hoglin
horse	Horse
husk	Husk
irongolem	Iron Golem
lightning	Lightning Bold
llama	Llama
magmacube	Magma Cube
mule	Mule
mushroomcow	Mooshroom
npc	NPC
ocelot	Ocelot
panda	Panda
phantom	Phantom
pig	Pig
piglin_brute	Piglin Brute
pillager	Pillager
player	Player
polarbear	Polar Bear
pufferfish	Pufferfish
rabbit	Rabbit
ravager	Ravager
salmon	Salmon
sheep	Sheep
shulker	Shulker
silverfish	Silverfish
skeletonhorse	Skeleton Horse
slime	Slime
snowgolem	Snow Golem
spider	Spider
stray	Stray
strider	Strider
tadpole	Tadpole
tnt	TNT
tripodcamera	Camera
tropicalfish	Tropical Fish
turtle	Turtle
vex	Vex
villager	Villager
vindicator	Vindicator
wandering_trader	Wandering Trader
warden	Warden
witch	Witch
wolf	Wolf
zoglin	Zoglin
zombie_pigman	Zombie Pigman
zombie_villager	Zombie Villager
zombiehorse	Zombie Horse
hoglin_adult	Hoglin
adult_piglin	Piglin Brute
strider_adult	Strider
zoglin_adult	Zoglin
animal	Goat
artisan	Villager
hoglin_baby	Hoglin
strider_baby	Strider
zoglin_baby	Zoglin
blacksmith	Villager
wandering_trader_despawning	Wandering Trader
hoglin_huntable	Hoglin
peasant	Villager
piglin_hunter	Piglin
priest	Village
parrot_tame	Parrot
pacified	Bee
parrot_wild	Parrot
panda_aggressive	Panda
unskilled	Zombie Villager

Adding Custom Entity Families

Believe it or not, all of that was just the beginning! You can also create your own custom entity families and really take the customization to another level. With entities in a custom family, you can create unique behaviors (or even whole game modes!) based on the relationships between the entities in your world.

Keep in mind that you cannot directly add an entity family to an existing entity. If you want to achieve this, the best thing to do is to create a custom entity that is identical to the vanilla entity, but with your custom family tag included.

The following example shows the type family component for a vanilla cow entity with an added custom family tag called custom.

{
 "components": {
            "minecraft:is_hidden_when_invisible": {},
            "minecraft:type_family": {
                "family": [
                    "cow",
                    "mob",
                    "custom"
                ]
            },
        }
}