Publishing an Artifact to Nexus with Maven

Publishing to Nexus requires three coordinated pieces: the POM declares where to publish, settings.xml holds the credentials, and mvn deploy orchestrates the upload. The separation keeps credentials out of version control.

POM configuration

• in the POM specifies both a release repository URL and a snapshot repository URL, each identified by a server ID — the ID is the link Maven uses to look up credentials in settings.xml
• Maven routes automatically by version string: if the artifact version ends in -SNAPSHOT, it goes to the snapshot repository; anything else goes to releases — the same mvn deploy command handles both
• Never put credentials in — URLs belong in the POM, credentials belong in settings.xml under a block matching the repository ID

`settings.xml` and credential management

• ~/.m2/settings.xml holds the entries with username and password matching the server IDs in the POM — this file lives outside the project directory and is never committed to version control
• In CI pipelines, generate settings.xml from pipeline secrets at build time rather than committing it — this keeps credentials out of the repository entirely even in CI configuration
• Use encrypted passwords in settings.xml with mvn --encrypt-password for additional protection on shared development machines

Multi-module deploy safety

• Without -DdeployAtEnd=true, Maven deploys each module as it builds — a failure in a later module leaves consumers with a partial, incompatible set of artifacts already published to Nexus
• -DdeployAtEnd=true waits until all modules have successfully built before deploying any — either the complete consistent set ships or nothing ships