The listener option to the -javaagent JVM argument is being interpreted the wrong way round. Supplying option listener:false should cause a plain old Byteman Transformer instance to be registered with the JVM. Supplying listener:true should cause a Byteman Retransformer to be installed with an associated TarnsformListener instance listening for dynamic transform requests. Unfortunately this is currently ass-backwards. So, you need to supply listener:false (the default) to get a lsitener and listener:true to get a plain old Transformer with no listener.