Open Liberty naming guidelines

ALL NEW Open Liberty artifacts MUST follow the same naming conventions

API - io.openliberty.xxx

SPI - io.openliberty.xxx.spi

Internal - io.openliberty.xxx.internal

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Within reason, this applies to everything. e.g.

• Java packages
• Project names
• OSGi Bundle names
• API/SPI jar names
• Feature names (long)
• Liberty Configuration PIDs
• System properties
• Maven artifact IDs

xxx is a short component name. It may be composed of multiple elements (xxx.yyy).

Ideally, xxx is the short name for the external feature, including its version. Project, bundle and jar names should include the that feature version but use a dot rather than a dash (example-1.0 -> example.1.0). A Java package name would normally omit the version as package versioning is done by other means.

These guidelines are most important for user visible elements such as API/SPI Java Packages and Jars. There is flexibility when it comes to internals but it is important to maintain consistency.

Private API Features

Many of the API jars shipped in Liberty are included in private Liberty features. This allows other Liberty features to require the API as needed while still keeping the API packages as an internal implementation detail. Only when a public or protected feature is enabled that specifies the package is API or SPI is the package available at runtime to applications and/or product extensions. Private feature names are not as important as the public or protected feature names because they can be freely change without breaking Liberty externals but consistency should be used to make it less confusing. New private API features should use a name that follows the scheme:

io.openliberty.<tech name>.api-<version>

For example the feature that includes the Jakarta EE Servlet version 5.0 packages would be io.openliberty.servlet.api-5.0. The issue #13703 is tracking the work to rename our existing private API features to use this naming scheme.

Examples

It is difficult to cover all the possible variations but here some examples.

A brand new Open Liberty feature called example-1.0 would have the following;

Features

• Public
  • Short name = example-1.0
  • Long name = io.openliberty.example-1.0
• Protected & Private
  • Generic internal feature = io.openliberty.exampleInternal-1.0
  • JEE8 API feature = io.openliberty.javax.example-1.0
  • JEE9 API feature = io.openliberty.jakarta.example-1.0
  • MicroProfile API feature = io.openliberty.org.eclipse.microprofile.example-1.0
• Auto Features
  • Version specific = io.openliberty.exampleOne1.0-exampleTwo5.0
  • Multi-version = io.openliberty.exampleOne-exampleTwo

Java Packages

• API = io.openliberty.example
• SPI = io.openliberty.example.spi
• Internal = io.openliberty.example.internal

Projects & Bundles

Where possible, the OSGi bundle symbolic names should be the same as the project name on disk.

• Open Liberty API = io.openliberty.example.1.0
  • Maven Coordinates = io.openliberty.api:io.openliberty.example:1.0.40 (40 is the release minor version)
• Open Liberty SPI = io.openliberty.example.1.0.spi
  • Maven Coordinates = io.openliberty.spi:io.openliberty.example.spi:1.0.40 (40 is the release minor version)
• Internal = io.openliberty.example.1.0.internal
• Internal = io.openliberty.example.1.0.internal.subname
• Internal common component = io.openliberty.mycontainer.common.internal
  • The name of the common component is mycontainer.common. It is used internally by multiple features.

Third party projects & (re)bundles

• External API = io.openliberty.jakarta.newspec.2.0
• External OSS library = io.openliberty.org.acme.widget
  • Does not have a version in the name. This makes it easier to upgrade the library later on.
• Third Party API = io.openliberty.example.1.0.thirdparty
  • This is a rebundling of a third party API as part of the example-1.0 feature. Ends up in wlp/dev/api/third-party.
  • Does not contain the actual name or version of the third party API, only that of the feature. Again, this makes it easier to upgrade in the future.

MicroProfile Example

• Feature short name = mpNewSpec-2.0
• Feature long name = io.openliberty.mpNewSpec-2.0
• MicroProfile API project/bundle = io.openliberty.org.eclipse.microprofile.newspec.2.0
• Internal implementation project/bundle = io.openliberty.microprofile.newspec.2.0.internal
• External OSS library project/bundle = io.openliberty.io.smallrye.acme

An example project for an API bundle & jar might look like this;

dev/io.openliberty.example.1.0/
   src/io/openliberty/example/Example.java

An example SPI;

dev/io.openliberty.example.1.0.spi/
   src/io/openliberty/example/spi/ExampleSPI.java

An implementation bundle;

dev/io.openliberty.example.1.0.internal/
   src/io/openliberty/example/internal/ExampleImpl.java
   test/io/openliberty/example/internal/test/ExampleTest.java

Another implementation bundle;

dev/io.openliberty.example.1.0.internal.subname/
   src/io/openliberty/example/internal/subname/ExampleImpl.java
   test/io/openliberty/example/internal/subname/test/ExampleTest.java