Multi-module projects

You will be prompted for the version number for each module of the project. If you prefer that every module gets the same version as the parent POM, you can set the option autoVersionSubmodules to true. Now you will be asked only once for the release version and the next development version.

Generating release POMs

It is possible to generate a release-pom.xml file for each project that contains the fully resolved project used at release time as a record for later. As of the 2.0 release, this requires calling an alternate goal:

mvn release:prepare-with-pom

This goal is equivalent to the release:prepare goal, except that it requires a previous build of the project to exist to properly populate the release-pom.xml files.

Overriding the default tag name format

By default, if you do not specify a tag name, a default tag name of artifactId-version will be suggested (and used if running non-interactively).

You can override proposed value with the exact tag name to use from the command line by passing the tag property (-Dtag=my-tag). If you want to have the tag name generated, but just change the default pattern, you can use the tagNameFormat configuration option.

For example to have the tag name default to the version number prefixed with a v you could configure your pom like so:

<project>
  [...]
  <build>
    [...]
    <plugins>
      [...]
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-release-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>3.1.1</version>
        <configuration>
          <tagNameFormat>v@{project.version}</tagNameFormat>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
      [...]
    </plugins>
    [...]
  </build>
  [...]
</project>

The tagNameFormat uses @{ and } as delimiters in order to ensure that the default Maven property interpolation does not substitute the values before the version transformation has taken place.

The following properties are supported:

• project.groupId which corresponds to the project's groupId.
• project.artifactId which corresponds to the project's artifactId.
• project.version which corresponds to the project's release version.

The project. prefix is optional and may be omitted.

Overriding proposed release and next development versions

The Release Plugin automatically calculates the versions that are proposed for the release and the next development version (i.e. the next SNAPSHOT).

The default VersionPolicy compares and increments versions for a common java versioning scheme: the proposed release version is the current version without -SNAPSHOT, and the proposed next development version is a minor increment to the release with -SNAPSHOT.

It is possible to select a different VersionPolicy by specifying its id:

<project>
  ...
  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-release-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>3.1.1</version>
        <configuration>
          <projectVersionPolicyId>SemVerVersionPolicy</projectVersionPolicyId>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
    ...
  </build>
  ...
</project>

There are 3 VersionPolicies bundled with the Release Plugin:

• default: increments versions for a common java versioning scheme,
• OddEvenVersionPolicy: even version numbers for releases, and odd version numbers for development (see javadoc),
• SemVerVersionPolicy: enforce SemVer format and increase minor element when resolving the development version (see javadoc).