Source: openaf 06414cd9. See documentation baseline for availability and verification.

Console Java Plugin Reference

The Console plugin uses JLine 4.4.3 behind OpenAF’s compatible jline.console.ConsoleReader facade to provide interactive line reading, character masking, non-blocking single-key reads, and ANSI capability checks.

Loading Syntax

plugin("Console");
var con = new Console();

API Methods

Method	Parameters	Return Type	Description
`readLinePrompt(prompt, maskChar)`	`String, [String]`	`String`	Displays `prompt` and reads a line; masks input if `maskChar` is provided (e.g. `"*"`).
`readLine(maskChar)`	`[String]`	`String`	Reads input line without prompt prefix; optional masking.
`readChar(allowed)`	`[String]`	`char`	Reads a single keypress. Restricts to allowed characters if string provided.
`readCharNB()`	none	`int`	Non-blocking raw character read (`-1` on EOF, `-2` if no character is available).
`readCharB()`	none	`int`	Blocking raw character read (`-1` on EOF, `-2` on none).
`isAnsiSupported()`	none	`boolean`	Checks if current terminal supports ANSI color escape sequences.
`getConsoleReader()`	none	`ConsoleReader`	Returns the legacy-compatible Java `ConsoleReader` facade.

Practical Code Example

plugin("Console");
var con = new Console();

var user = con.readLinePrompt("Enter username: ", "");
var pass = con.readLinePrompt("Enter password: ", "*");
var choice = con.readChar("ynYN");

if (con.isAnsiSupported()) {
  print("\u001b[32mInput accepted!\u001b[0m");
}

JLine 4 compatibility

Existing OpenAF, mini-a, CHManager and OpenCLI scripts can keep their current APIs. OpenAF supplies the legacy history, string/argument completers and cursor-buffer classes used by these scripts; the JLine 2 dependency and terminal backend are removed. This is compatibility for the supported OpenAF usage, not a complete implementation of every JLine 2 class.

OpenAFConsoleCompleter(function(buffer, cursor, candidates) { ... }) retains UTF-16 cursor/replacement offsets, first-successful-completer ordering and the setPrintSpaceAfterFullCompletion(false) setting. Callbacks execute once.
FileHistory retains plain-text files, ^J multiline entries, size limits, iteration, flush() and purge(). Password input does not enter history.
Console instances share one terminal and input reader, including blocking and non-blocking character reads. EOF remains null for lines and -1 for raw reads; a non-blocking read with no input returns -2.
Terminal dimensions, encoding and ANSI checks remain available. The public settings facade supports icanon, -icanon, echo, -echo, min, time, and restoring cooked input with sane; get() returns a restorable representation of those attributes. It is not a general-purpose stty wrapper.
JNI selects the native terminal on macOS, Linux and Windows. Redirected input uses JLine’s dumb-terminal fallback. The runtime minimum remains Java 21. Generated launchers include native access on Java 24+, Windows UTF-8 setup, and Unix terminal-restoration traps. Old jline.terminal and jline.shutdownhook properties no longer select or disable the backend.

For direct Java 24+ invocation, use --enable-native-access=ALL-UNNAMED. The compatibility layer owns cleanup independently of the obsolete JLine 2 shutdown-hook setting.

Regression checks

The normal oJob suite includes autoTestAll.Console.yaml. Additional checks, run from the repository root against the newly built JAR:

mkdir -p /tmp/openaf-console-tests
javac --release 21 -cp openaf.jar -d /tmp/openaf-console-tests tests/java/ConsoleCompatibilityTest.java tests/java/JLineRepackTest.java
java --enable-native-access=ALL-UNNAMED -ea -cp /tmp/openaf-console-tests:openaf.jar ConsoleCompatibilityTest
java -ea -cp /tmp/openaf-console-tests:openaf.jar JLineRepackTest
java --enable-native-access=ALL-UNNAMED -jar openaf.jar -f tests/console-consumer-completion.js
python3 tests/console-pty.py openaf.jar
python3 tests/console-pty.py openaf.jar.orig --nested
node tests/console-launchers.cjs

The consumer check expects the sibling mini-a and opencli checkouts. It extracts their actual callbacks and supplies local discovery fixtures without starting agents or contacting backends. The nested check uses a disposable manifest override to bypass automatic repacking and registers the Console plugin directly. The PTY check requires POSIX; Windows runtime checks should cover Cmd/PowerShell/Windows Terminal and Windows Java launched from Cygwin. Use ; instead of : for the Java classpath on Windows.