Plugin Documentation

Goals available for this plugin:

Goal Description
release:branch Branch a project in SCM. For more info see this example.
release:clean Clean up after a release preparation. For more info see this example.
release:help Display help information on maven-release-plugin.
Call 
  mvn release:help -Ddetail=true -Dgoal=<goal-name>
to display parameter details.
release:perform Perform a release from SCM. For more info see this example.
release:prepare Prepare for a release in SCM. For more info see this example.
release:prepare-with-pom Prepare for a release in SCM, fully resolving dependencies for the purpose of producing a "release POM". For more info see this example.
release:rollback Rollback changes made by a previous release. For more info see this example.
release:stage Perform a release from SCM to a staging repository.
release:update-versions Update the POM versions for a project. For more info see this example.

System Requirements

The following specifies the minimum requirements to run this Maven plugin:

Maven 2.0.9
JDK 1.4
Memory No minimum requirement.
Disk Space No minimum requirement.

Usage

You should specify the version in your project's plugin configuration:

<project>
  ...
  <build>
    <!-- To define the plugin version in your parent POM -->
    <pluginManagement>
      <plugins>
        <plugin>
          <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
          <artifactId>maven-release-plugin</artifactId>
          <version>2.0</version>
        </plugin>
        ...
      </plugins>
    </pluginManagement>
    <!-- To use the plugin goals in your POM or parent POM -->
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-release-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.0</version>
      </plugin>
      ...
    </plugins>
  </build>
  ...
</project>

For more information, see "Guide to Configuring Plug-ins"