Platform and Distribution Reference

Platform and Distribution Reference

When you publish a version, two fields describe what you're publishing and where it runs: platform (always required) and distribution (Java only). This page lists the exact accepted values.

These are canonical enum values enforced by the API. They are case-sensitive and must match exactly - an unrecognised value is rejected with a 400 Bad Request.

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Platform

Every published version carries exactly one platform. Most candidates ship a single archive that runs everywhere - use UNIVERSAL. Only publish per-platform values if you genuinely ship separate binaries per OS/architecture.

Value	Target
UNIVERSAL	Platform-independent - one archive for all systems
LINUX_X64	Linux, x86-64
LINUX_ARM64	Linux, ARM 64-bit (AArch64)
LINUX_X32	Linux, x86 32-bit
LINUX_ARM32HF	Linux, ARM 32-bit hard-float
LINUX_ARM32SF	Linux, ARM 32-bit soft-float
MAC_X64	macOS, Intel (x86-64)
MAC_ARM64	macOS, Apple Silicon (ARM64)
WINDOWS_X64	Windows, x86-64

UNIVERSAL must be requested explicitly. There is no implicit default - if your SDK is platform-independent, publish it with "platform": "UNIVERSAL".

Which do I use?

• Build tools, languages, CLIs that ship one archive (Gradle, Maven, sbt, Ant, Groovy, Kotlin, and most others): use UNIVERSAL, published once.
• SDKs with a separate binary per OS/arch: publish each platform value you ship, in a loop or as separate steps.

For how your archive itself should be laid out, see Well-formed SDK Archives.

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Distribution

distribution applies to Java only. It identifies the JDK vendor/build (e.g. Temurin vs Corretto vs Zulu), so multiple distributions of the same Java version can coexist.

For every non-Java candidate, omit distribution entirely. It is not a "vendor" field for general SDKs - it's specifically the Java distribution axis.

Accepted values:

Value	Distribution
TEMURIN	Eclipse Temurin (Adoptium)
ZULU	Azul Zulu
CORRETTO	Amazon Corretto
ORACLE	Oracle JDK
OPENJDK	Oracle OpenJDK
GRAALVM	Oracle GraalVM
GRAALCE	GraalVM Community Edition
LIBERICA	BellSoft Liberica
LIBERICA_NIK	BellSoft Liberica Native Image Kit
MICROSOFT	Microsoft Build of OpenJDK
SAP_MACHINE	SapMachine
SEMERU	IBM Semeru
KONA	Tencent Kona
BISHENG	Huawei BiSheng
MANDREL	Red Hat Mandrel
JETBRAINS	JetBrains Runtime
ELIYA	Eliya

Java distributions are published automatically via the Foojay DISCO API - vendors don't publish Java through the API by hand. This list is here for reference and for tooling that reads the state directly.

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Java version format (semverish)

Semverish is SDKMAN!'s normalised, SemVer-like version scheme: a mandatory three-part major.minor.patch core with optional variant and build-metadata sections. Some candidates opt in to having their versions validated against it; Java is the first. A Java version string must match:

M.N.P[-variant][+build-metadata]

• M.N.P - three non-negative integers, no leading zeros (e.g. 21.0.2)
• -variant - optional; currently fx (JavaFX) or crac (e.g. 21.0.2-fx)
• +build-metadata - optional; unlike SemVer, it is significant in semverish and forms part of the version's identity

Semverish borrows SemVer's surface syntax but reinterprets it (the variant is a released flavour, not a pre-release). For the full grammar and rationale, see the semverish specification.

Publishing a visible, eligible Java version supersedes its release series: every other version in the same (candidate, distribution, platform, major, variant) series is hidden (visible=false). Hidden is not deleted - the old version still resolves by its exact identifier and keeps its tags; it just drops out of sdk list.

Non-Java candidates are not semverish-validated - any version string is accepted.