Camel CLI Launcher

Available as of Camel 4.13

A self-contained executable JAR for running Camel CLI without JBang. Uses Spring Boot’s nested JAR loader for fast startup and isolated classpath.

Download from Maven Central.

Using the fat-jar directly

java -jar camel-launcher-<version>.jar version
java -jar camel-launcher-<version>.jar run hello.java

Using the distribution (recommended)

Extract the distribution archive:

unzip camel-launcher-<version>-bin.zip
# or
tar -xzf camel-launcher-<version>-bin.tar.gz

And then use the provided scripts:

# On Unix/Linux
./bin/camel.sh [command] [options]

# On Windows
bin\camel.bat [command] [options]

Benefits

• No JBang installation required
• Faster startup (no dependency resolution, on-demand class loading)
• Lower memory usage (only loads classes actually used)
• No classpath conflicts (dependencies kept as separate nested JARs)
• Pinned Camel version — upgrade by downloading a newer launcher

Limitations

The --camel-version option is not supported — it requires JBang to dynamically download a different version. Use a different launcher JAR version instead, or install via JBang: jbang app install camel@apache/camel.

More Information

See Installing the Camel CLI Launcher for the website installer scripts, camel self-update, and `camel doctor’s multi-install detection, and the general Camel CLI documentation.