Success and Error indicators

The mod tells you what it is doing without you ever opening a menu.

When something works

A villager emits the green star particles when a shelf binds to its workstation or when a chest binds. That is your confirmation that placement worked. No particle means it did not bind.

When something is wrong

A blocked villager tries to show you the missing mandatory item it needs as an icon above its head, which persists so you can spot the stuck station from across the village. If the problem is not specific to a single item, it shows the vanilla angry particles.

What it shows	What it means
A tool or material	It cannot work without this — stock the shelf
Copper chest	Permanent storage is full or unreachable
Shelf	Shelf binding is ambiguous or shared — too many shelves, or one shared between stations
Angry particles	More than one mandatory item is missing.
Armor stand	More than one armor stand, or the stand is shared with another maker of the same kind: two armour makers, or two weapon makers
Plain chest	Armory is missing, for a weaponsmith, fletcher or leatherworker, or its only chest also touches another maker of the same kind: two armour makers, or two weapon makers. Shown once the shelf has what the villager needs. Never shown by the armorer, whose armory is optional
Fish	No nearby water for Fisherman to fish

With MCA Reborn extension installed, all of this is also spoken aloud and written to chat in plain language, which is considerably easier than reading icons.

Errors show only during working hours.

What is not an error

Any missing optional item.

One thing that looks like it is there still counts as missing: the last of an item a shelf keeps as its marker. A butcher’s last wheat, a fletcher’s last flint and a cleric’s last nether wart stay on the shelf to say what it is for, and are never used, so a shelf down to one has nothing left to work with. Once the villager lacks nothing else, it shows that item.