Byte Buddy installOn API giving error: adding retransformable transformers is not supported?

Question

Why installOn API is giving an error in my code. I want to call instrumentation.retransformClasses API from another thread. or can we call instrumentation.retransformClasses API in bytebuddy. I want to insert a static field after class is loaded. If that's possible, a short example would be great!

public static void premain(String arguments, Instrumentation instrumentation) {

    System.out.println("Agent for add fields ");
    final ByteBuddy byteBuddy = new ByteBuddy().with(Implementation.Context.Disabled.Factory.INSTANCE);
    new AgentBuilder.Default()    
              .with(byteBuddy).with(RedefinitionStrategy.RETRANSFORMATION)
              .with(new AgentBuilder.InitializationStrategy.SelfInjection.Eager())
              .with(TypeStrategy.Default.REDEFINE)
              .type((ElementMatchers.nameContains("Method")))
              .transform(new Transformer() {
                   public Builder<?> transform(Builder<?> arg0, TypeDescription arg1, ClassLoader arg2,
                            JavaModule arg3) {
                        // TODO Auto-generated method stub
                        return null;
                    }
                })
              .installOn(instrumentation);

    Thread thread = new Thread() {
        public void run() {
            System.out.println("Thread Running");
            try {
                Thread.currentThread().sleep(10000);

                Class c[] = instrumentation.getAllLoadedClasses();
                for (int i = 0; i < c.length; i++) {
                    String clsName = c[i].getName();

                    System.out.println(clsName);
                    if (clsName.equals("com.github.shehanperera.example.Method")) {

                            instrumentation.retransformClasses(c[i]);
                    }
                }
            } catch (Exception e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
                System.out.println(e);
            }

        }
    };

    thread.start(); 
}

Giving exception:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:498)
    at sun.instrument.InstrumentationImpl.loadClassAndStartAgent(InstrumentationImpl.java:386)
    at sun.instrument.InstrumentationImpl.loadClassAndCallPremain(InstrumentationImpl.java:401)
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Could not install class file transformer
    at net.bytebuddy.agent.builder.AgentBuilder$Default.installOn(AgentBuilder.java:8538)
    at net.bytebuddy.agent.builder.AgentBuilder$Default$Delegator.installOn(AgentBuilder.java:10179)
    at com.github.shehanperera.addfield.Agent.premain(Agent.java:39)
    ... 6 more
Caused by: java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException: adding retransformable transformers is not supported in this environment
    at sun.instrument.InstrumentationImpl.addTransformer(InstrumentationImpl.java:88)
    at net.bytebuddy.agent.builder.AgentBuilder$Default.installOn(AgentBuilder.java:8514)
    ... 8 more
FATAL ERROR in native method: processing of -javaagent failed

Answer 1

Javassist does not allow anything like that by default, javassist just does simple clever trick and allows you to edit class before it's actually loaded, as classes are loaded on first use. Otherwise typical agent with retransform must be used too.

And to create instrumentation that can retransform classes you must add proper flag to manifest:
Can-Retransform-Classes: true

https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/instrument/Instrumentation.html