Execution

This section describes how to set up a Spring Shell to work in interactive mode.

Interaction Mode

Version 2.1.x introduced built-in support to distinguish between interactive and non-interactive modes. This makes it easier to use the shell as a simple command-line tool without requiring customization.

Currently, interactive mode is entered if any command line options are passed when starting or running a shell from a command line. This works especially well when a shell application is compiled with Native Support.

Some commands may not have any useful meanings when they run in interactive mode or (conversely) in non-interactive mode. For example, a built-in exit command would have no meaning in non-interactive mode, because it is used to exit interactive mode.

The @ShellMethod annotation has a field called interactionMode that you can use to inform shell about when a particular command is available.

Shell Runners

ShellApplicationRunner is a main interface where Boot’s ApplicationArguments are passed and its default implementation makes a choice which ShellRunner is used. There can be only one ShellApplicationRunner but it can be redefined if needed for some reason.

Three ShellRunner implementation exists, named InteractiveShellRunner, NonInteractiveShellRunner and ScriptShellRunner. Only NonInteractiveShellRunner is enabled by default. Enabled state can be modified using properties spring.shell.interactive.enabled, spring.shell.noninteractive.enabled and spring.shell.script.enabled respecively.

For example enabling interactive and script runners use properties:

spring:
  shell:
    interactive:
      enabled: true
    script:
      enabled: true

Versions up to 3.2.x had all runners enabled by default, starting from 3.3.x only NonInteractiveShellRunner is enabled by default.

Starting from 3.3.x a ShellRunner interface has a new method:

default boolean run(String[] args) throws Exception {
  return false;
}

This will the main api going forward and other existing methods taking boot’s ApplicationArguments has been deprecated and will be removed in future.