Terminal Provider SPI

A ServiceLoader-based SPI for pluggable terminal implementations, allowing different terminal backends to be discovered and loaded at runtime.

How It Works

TerminalBuilder.build() discovers all TerminalProvider implementations via ServiceLoader, filters by isSupported(), sorts by priority (highest first), and tries each until one succeeds. If none works, it falls back to ExternalTerminal.

Built-in Providers

Custom Provider

Implement TerminalProvider and register via META-INF/services:

public class MyTerminalProvider implements TerminalProvider {
    @Override
    public String name() { return "my-terminal"; }

    @Override
    public boolean isSupported() {
        return /* check platform/capabilities */;
    }

    @Override
    public int priority() { return 110; } // higher than built-in

    @Override
    public Terminal createTerminal(String name, String type,
            boolean nativeSignals) throws IOException {
        return new MyTerminal(name, nativeSignals);
    }
}

Register in META-INF/services/org.aesh.terminal.provider.TerminalProvider:

com.example.MyTerminalProvider

Priority

Higher priority values are preferred. When multiple providers are supported, the one with the highest priority is tried first. If it fails, the next is tried.

Recommended ranges:

• 100+ — native/FFM providers (best performance)
• 50-99 — process-based providers (exec/JNI)
• 1-49 — fallback providers (dumb terminals)