The -global-modules syntax in the appclient help message is wrong (and my assumption is the implementation is wrong too, hence this being a blocker, although I haven't looked.)

where args include:
-H <url> Set the url of the AS7 instance to connect to
-H=<url> Set the url of the AS7 instance to connect to
--host=<url> Set the url of the AS7 instance to connect to
-D<name>[=<value>] Set a system property
-global-modules Specify additional modules in a comma separated list to be made available to the application

That should be --global-modules=xxxx,yyyy

Two dashes before multi-characters param names. Equal sign separation between name and value.

Supporting space in addition to equal sign is legal (and highly encouraged). Only supporting space is not legal.