Shape
Two slopes meeting at a ridge, the ordinary house roof.
Pitch
One stair per block of run. The normal Minecraft roof.
Size
Measure the walls, then add the overhang you want on each side. An odd width gives a one block ridge, an even width a flat two block top.
Inside
Upside-down stairs under each stair turn the stepped ceiling into a smooth slope.
Stairs
Oak Planks for the ridge and fill, oak slab where the pitch calls for slabs.
Gable wall block
Materials
The schematic and structure files carry the stair facing and corner shapes, so nothing has to be rotated after pasting. The commands are relative to where you stand, one per run of blocks, with the west eave at your feet; the roof sits with its eaves at your level, so stand one block above the top of the wall.
On Bedrock, open the .mcpack to import it, turn it on under the world's Behavior Packs (cheats have to be on), stand where the north-west corner should go and run the /structure load command the pack describes. On Windows a structure block can import the .mcstructure directly.
Pitch, and what it costs you
A Minecraft roof is a height field: every block of the roof is as far from the eave as its course is high, scaled by the pitch. At 45 degrees that is one stair per block of run, which is why stairs are the roof block. Shallower needs slabs, steeper needs a full block under each stair, and both cost more per block of width.
The 45 degree roof is the one that looks right on most builds and it is the cheapest: one stair per run, a full block on the ridge, and nothing else unless you want the ceiling smooth. The shallow pitch stacks slabs bottom then top, so a roof twice as wide is no taller, which suits long halls and modern builds. The steep pitch puts a full block under every stair and climbs two blocks per run, the shape of a church or a witch's hut. The mansard is the steep pitch for the first third of the run and the shallow one above it, which is how you get an attic with headroom under a roof that still reads as a roof.
Building it from the plan
Switch the view to the course plan and step up one course at a time. Each square is one block seen from above: a wedge points uphill on a stair, a half-shaded square is a slab, full squares are full blocks and the pale wedges are the upside-down stairs of a smooth ceiling. Build the first course all the way round, step up, repeat. For a hip roof the first course is the whole outline and every course after it is one block in on all four sides, so the corners take care of themselves as long as each stair faces uphill.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which way should stairs face on a roof?
Uphill. A stair's full-height side is the side it faces, so on the west slope of a roof every stair faces east, toward the ridge, and on the east slope every stair faces west. Place a stair while looking up the slope and it comes out right. The generator sets facing for every stair in the file so a paste needs no fixing.
How do you make a smooth ceiling under a stair roof?
Put an upside-down stair directly under each roof stair, facing the same way. The hanging half of the upside-down stair meets the step of the stair beside it and the staircase ceiling turns into a 45 degree slope. The Smooth ceiling option does this for every stair, and counts the extra stairs in the materials.
What is the difference between a gable and a hip roof?
A gable has two slopes meeting at a ridge and leaves a triangle of wall open at each end, which you fill with blocks (the generator does that with the gable ends option). A hip slopes on all four sides, so there is no end wall to fill, and its corner stairs take the outer corner shape, which this tool sets the way the game would.
How wide can a roof be?
Up to 96 blocks each way here, and the maths does not care beyond that. A 45 degree roof rises half its width, so a 31 block wide roof is 16 courses tall at the ridge; the shallow slab pitch halves that and the steep pitch doubles it, which is the usual reason to pick a pitch.
Why do the corners of my hip roof look wrong after pasting?
Most tools write every stair as straight and leave it to the game to fix the corners when a neighbour updates, which does not always happen on a paste. This generator writes the inner_left, inner_right, outer_left and outer_right shapes into the file using the same neighbour rule the game uses, so the corners are correct the moment the schematic lands.
Can I paste the roof on Bedrock?
Yes. The .mcstructure keeps every stair's direction and upside-down state through the Bedrock block tables, and the .mcpack wraps it so a phone or console can place it with /structure load. On Windows a structure block can import the .mcstructure file directly.
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