Command line

The Axelor Open Platform can be built as a command line application.

CLI is in beta. Use it with caution till it is promoted GA.

Command line app

The command line application can be built with the following gradle command:

$ ./gradlew buildApp

The application bundle will be generated at build/install/{project-name} folder which includes extracted war application in the app/ directory, launcher script dependencies in the lib/ directory and executable scripts in the bin/ directory.

The bundle also includes a README.txt file with usage instructions and a LICENSE file.

Java 21 or higher is required to run the command line application.

Command line tool

The axelor script is an executable command line tool that can be used to execute various commands provided by the app:

$ ./bin/axelor --help

You would see something like this:

Usage: axelor [-hV] [-c=FILE] [COMMAND]
  -c, --config=FILE   Path to axelor config file.
  -h, --help          Show this help message and exit.
  -V, --version       Print version information and exit.
Commands:
  run       Run the application.
  database  Perform database maintenance operations.

To know how to use the supported commands, call the tool like this:

$ ./bin/axelor run --help
$ ./bin/axelor database --help

The -c option can be used to provide axelor config file.

$ ./bin/axelor -c /path/to/axelor-config.properties run

Custom commands

The app modules can provide additional commands by implementing com.axelor.app.cli.CliCommand or more conveniently by extending com.axelor.app.cli.AbstractCliCommand which provide helper methods to execute tasks inside container or persistence sessions.

The custom commands are automatically discovered using the MetaScanner that efficiently scans only Axelor modules to find all implementations of com.axelor.app.cli.CliCommand.

The commands should use picocli annotations:

package com.axelor.some.cli;

import com.axelor.app.cli.AbstractCliCommand;
import java.util.Optional;
import picocli.CommandLine.Command;
import picocli.CommandLine.Option;

@Command(name = "hello", description = "Show hello message.")
public class HelloCommand extends AbstractCliCommand {

  @Option(names = "--message", description="Specify alternative message.")
  private String message;

  public void run() {
    String msg = Optional.ofNullable(message).orElse("Hello World!!!");
    System.out.println(msg);
  }
}

The HelloCommand will be automatically discovered at runtime using the MetaScanner. No additional configuration is required - simply implementing the CliCommand interface is sufficient.

The hello command will be available with the axelor tool:

$ ./bin/axelor hello --message "Awesome!"

The AbstractCliCommand class provide two helper methods:

  • withContainer(Runnable) - run the task within the Guice container

  • withSession(Runnable) - same as withContainer but persistence service is automatically started

package com.axelor.some.cli;

import com.axelor.app.cli.AbstractCliCommand;
import com.axelor.inject.Beans;
import picocli.CommandLine.Command;
import picocli.CommandLine.Option;

@Command(name = "some", description = "Do something.")
public class SomeCommand extends AbstractCliCommand {

  public void run() {
    // persistence service is not started automatically
    withContainer(() -> { (1)
      SomeService service = Beans.get(SomeService.class);
      service.doSomeThing();
    });

    // persistence service started automatically
    withSession(() -> { (2)
      AnotherService service = Beans.get(AnotherService.class);
      service.doSomeThing();
    });
  }
}

  1. use withContainer if you need dependency injection support

  2. use withSession if you need persistence support