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Writing a Bundle Manifest

Updated: March 18, 2024

This page gives some rules for writing a bundle's manifest.

Check Nuxeo CLI to bootstrap your Bundle.

You should first refer to the Component Model page for a better understanding of Nuxeo Runtime, Bundles, Components and services concepts.

Here is some practical information:

  • Using the manifest you can define an unique name for your bundle (i.e. the Bundle-SymbolicName). This name is helping the framework to identify the bundle.
  • Using the manifest you can define an activator class.
  • Using the manifest you can declare bundle dependencies (so that the bundle can be started only when dependencies are resolved). Also, these dependencies are used to determine the visible class path of your bundle. Classes not specified in dependencies will not be visible to your bundle. Bundle dependencies are ignored by Nuxeo Runtime launcher.

In the Nuxeo Platform, the best way to initialize your components (without worrying about dependencies) is to use a lazy loading model - so that a service is initialized at the first call. This method also speed the startup time.

Another method is to use the FRAMEWORK_STARTED event for initialization. But this should be used with precaution since its use in Nuxeo doesn't respect OSGi specifications - and may change in future.

Here is an example of a minimal manifest as required by Nuxeo.

Manifest-Version: 1.0
Bundle-SymbolicName: org.nuxeo.ecm.core.api
Nuxeo-Component: OSGI-INF/DocumentAdapterService.xml,
  OSGI-INF/RepositoryManager.xml,
  OSGI-INF/blob-holder-service-framework.xml,
  OSGI-INF/blob-holder-adapters-contrib.xml,
  OSGI-INF/pathsegment-service.xml

Here is the same manifest but OSGI valid (and works in Eclipse):

Export-Package: org.nuxeo.ecm.core;api=split;mandatory:=api,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.api;api=split;mandatory:=api,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.api.security,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.api.repository,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.api.model.impl.primitives,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.api.event.impl,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.api.impl.converter,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.utils,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.api.security.impl,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.api.model.impl.osm,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.url,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.api.impl,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.api.operation,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.api.model.impl.osm.util,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.api.externalblob,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.url.nxobj,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.api.model,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.api.repository.cache,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.api.impl.blob,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.api.model.impl,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.api.blobholder,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.api.tree,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.api.adapter,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.api.local,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.url.nxdoc,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.api.facet,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.api.event
Bundle-ActivationPolicy: lazy
Bundle-ClassPath: .
Manifest-Version: 1.0
Bundle-Name: org.nuxeo.ecm.core.api
Created-By: 1.6.0_20 (Sun Microsystems Inc.)
Bundle-RequiredExecutionEnvironment: JavaSE-1.6
Bundle-Version: 0.0.0.SNAPSHOT
Bundle-ManifestVersion: 2
Nuxeo-Component: OSGI-INF/DocumentAdapterService.xml,
  OSGI-INF/RepositoryManager.xml,
  OSGI-INF/blob-holder-service-framework.xml,
  OSGI-INF/blob-holder-adapters-contrib.xml,
  OSGI-INF/pathsegment-service.xml
Import-Package: javax.security.auth,
 javax.security.auth.callback,
 javax.security.auth.login,
 javax.security.auth.spi,
 org.apache.commons.collections.bidimap,
 org.apache.commons.collections.map,
 org.apache.commons.logging,
 org.nuxeo.common,
 org.nuxeo.common.collections,
 org.nuxeo.common.utils,
 org.nuxeo.common.xmap.annotation,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.schema,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.schema.types,
 org.nuxeo.ecm.core.schema.types.primitives,
 org.nuxeo.runtime,
 org.nuxeo.runtime.api,
 org.nuxeo.runtime.api.login,
 org.nuxeo.runtime.model,
 org.nuxeo.runtime.services.streaming
Bundle-SymbolicName: org.nuxeo.ecm.core.api;singleton=true
Eclipse-RegisterBuddy: org.nuxeo.runtime
Eclipse-ExtensibleAPI: true

Nuxeo is also using two specific manifest headers:

  • Nuxeo-Component: Which specify components declared by a bundle (as XML descriptor file paths relative to JAR root);
  • Nuxeo-WebModule: Which specify the class name of a JAX-RS application declared by a Nuxeo bundle.

Of course these two headers are optional and should be used only when needed.

Bundle Preprocessing

Nuxeo is a very dynamic platform. When building a Nuxeo Application you will get an application template. At each startup, the application files are dynamically updated by each bundle in the application that need to modify a global configuration setting or to provide a global resource. We call this mechanism preprocessing.