Set up an authoritative matchmaker and realtime match handler using Nakama
domain: gaming · 6 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
Sampled — shipped under file-level sampling, not individually fact-checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Steps
From the client SDK, call the matchmaker add method (e.g. AddMatchmakerAsync or add_matchmaker_async depending on SDK language) with minCount, maxCount, and a Lucene-like query plus string/numeric properties describing the player
On the server, register a before-hook with nk.register_rt_before(fn, "MatchmakerAdd") to authoritatively override or validate cheat-prone properties like rank instead of trusting client-supplied values
Set count_multiple so it evenly divides your desired match size, since matchmaker tickets never resolve if the pool can't be split evenly
Implement the authoritative match handler server-side (Go, Lua, or TypeScript runtime) using MatchInit and the related match loop callbacks to run per-tick game logic
Test matchmaking queries carefully in staging — a leftover wildcard query like "*" will match any opponent regardless of intended properties
Deploy the server runtime module alongside the Nakama server and verify match creation end-to-end before opening matchmaking to real players
Known gotchas
A query of "*" left over from testing matches any opponent regardless of region/rank/other properties, silently breaking intended matchmaking rules
count_multiple must evenly divide the match size or tickets simply never resolve, with no obvious error surfaced to the client
Properties set client-side are not trusted by default; skill/rank fields used for matching should be authoritatively overridden in the MatchmakerAdd before-hook rather than read as-is from the client
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