Specifying API and SPI packages for a Liberty feature project

Use the Liberty feature manifest file to declare which packages you want to share as an API or SPI with other applications and features in the Liberty runtime environment.

To specify API and SPI packages for a Liberty feature project, complete the following steps:

1. From the Project Explorer view, open the feature manifest file for the Liberty feature project by double-clicking the Manifest node in the project hierarchy, indicated by the manifest icon ().
2. To make one or more API packages available to OSGi applications, click Add in the IBM API Packages pane.
3. When you create your own Liberty feature, you install it into the user product extension, and all the packages in your feature can be accessed by any other feature that is installed into the user product extension. To make one or more SPI packages available to features in other product extensions, click Add in the IBM SPI Packages pane.
4. (Optional) Specify the package version by selecting the package, clicking Properties, and entering the required value in the Version field.
5. (Optional) For an API package, select the package type from the Type list in the Properties dialog box.
   The type can be one of the following values:

   • spec - Indicates an API provided by a standard body, such as javax.servlet or org.osgi.framework.
   • ibm-api - Indicates a value-add API provided by IBM®.
   • api - Indicates a user-defined API. This is the default value.
   • third-party - Indicates an API that is visible, but not controlled by IBM. Typically, these are open source packages.
   • internal - Indicates non-API packages that must be exposed to applications for them to function. This might be used if Java™ code is bytecode enhanced, or weaved, to add references to internal code at run time.