General

The Artifactory plugin includes release management capabilities for Maven and Gradle jobs that use Subversion, Git or Perforce for VCS.

The plugin lets you manually stage a release build, allowing you to:

• Change values for the release and next development version
• Choose a target staging repository for deployment of the release, and
• Create a VCS tag for the release.

Staged release builds can later on be promoted or rolled-back, changing their release status in Artifactory and, optionally, moving the build artifacts to a different target repository.
Inside Artifactory the history of all build status change activities (staged, promoted, rolled-back, etc.) is recorded and displayed for full traceability.

Maven Release Management

Release management with Maven is done entirely by the plugin and executes the Maven build only once.
These are the basic steps that the plugin performs:

1. Change the POM versions to the release version (before the build starts)
2. Trigger the Maven build (with optionally different goals)
3. Commit/push changes to the tag (Subversion) or the release branch (Git)
4. Change the POM versions to the next development version
5. Commit/push changes to the trunk

In case of a failure, the plugin will do its best to rollback the changes (local and committed).

Configuring Maven Jobs

To enable release management in Maven jobs, edit the job configuration and check the "Enable Artifactory release management" checkbox.

Staging a Maven Release Build

Once the release management is enabled, Artifactory release staging link will appear in the on the top header bar in the job page.

Clicking on the release staging link will open a new page with configuration options for the release build:

The release staging page displays the last build version (the version is of the root pom and it is taken from the last non-release build).
Most of the fields in the form are filled with the default values.
Version configuration controls how the plugin changes the version in the pom files (global version for all modules, version per module or no version changes).
If create VCS tag is checked (default), the plugin will commit/push the poms with the release version to the VCS system with the commit comment. When using Git, there's also an option to create a release branch.
If the target Artifactory server is the Pro edition, the last section lets you change the target repository (the default is the release repository configured in Artifactory publisher) and to add a staging comment which will be included in the build info deployed to Artifactory.
Click on the "Build and Release to Artifactory" button to trigger the release build.

Promoting a Release Build

After a release build finish successfully it is possible to promote the build. This is not a required step, but very useful if you want to mark the build as released in Artifactory and to move/copy the built artifacts to another repository so the artifacts will be available for the consumers.

Artifactory Compatibility Artifactory Pro is required for promotion

To activate the action click on the 'Artifactory' tab link in the build result page.

Clicking on the link will open the promotion page:

Select the target status (Released or Rolled-Back) of the build and optional comment to display in the build in Artifactory. To move or copy the build artifacts select the target repository.

Gradle Release Management

The release management in Gradle relies on version (and other) properties managed by gradle.properties file. You add all the relevant properties to the release management configuration, and the plugin will read and modify those properties in the gradle.properties file.
These are the basic steps that the plugin performs:

1. Change the gradle.properties with release values (before the build starts)
2. Trigger the Gradle build step (with optionally different tasks and options)
3. Commit/push changes to the tag (Subversion) or the release branch (Git)
4. Change the gradle.properties with next integration values
5. Commit/push changes to the trunk

Configuring Gradle Jobs

The release management is also available for Gradle tasks in the Gradle Artifactory task. To enable Gradle release management, edit the Artifactory Gradle Task configuration and check "Enabled Release Management" checkbox.

Staging a Gradle Release Build

Once the release management is enabled, Artifactory release staging link will appear in the on the top header bar in the job page.
Clicking on the release staging link will open a new page with configuration options for the release build:

The release staging page displays the release and next development properties configured for the job. The values are read from the gradle.properties file and calculation of the release and next integration version is attempted and displayed in the text fields.
If create VCS tag is checked (default), the plugin will commit/push the poms with the release version to the VCS system with the commit comment. When using Git, if 'Use release branch' is checked, the next release version changes will be done on the branch instead of the currently checkout branch.
The last section lets you change the target repository (the default is the release repository configured in Artifactory publisher) and optional staging comment which will be included in the build info deployed to Artifactory.
Click on the "Build and Release to Artifactory" button to trigger the release build.

Promoting a Release Build

Promotion is same RTD:as in Maven.

Working with Subversion

The release management supports Subversion SCM when using one checkout directory.
During the release the plugin will perform the following:

1. Commit the release version directly to the tag (if create tag is checked). The release version is not committed to the to the working branch.
2. Commit the next development version to the working branch

Working with Git

To work with Git, the Git plugin has to be configured to build one branch AND to checkout to the same local branch. The remote URL should allow Read+Write access.
The plugin uses the git
client installed on the machine and uses its credentials to push back to the remote Git repository.

During the release the plugin will perform the following:

1. If create branch is checked, create and switch to the release branch
2. Commit the release version to the current branch
3. Create a release tag
4. Push the changes
5. Switch to the checkout branch and commit the next development version
6. Push the next development version to the working branch

Shallow Clones Bamboo's Git plugin allows for the use of shallow clones. However, This will cause the 'push' not to work. Therefore, when using the Artifactory-Bamboo plugin, you must have shallow clones unchecked. You can read more about shallow clones here

Working with Perforce

The release management supports Perforce SCM when using one checkout directory.
During the release the plugin will perform the following:

1. Commit the release version to the working branch and create a label pointing to the changed files (if create VCS tag is checked).
2. Commit the next development version to the working branch

Note that changes will only be committed if changes were made to the files (pom files or gradle.properties)