Releasing a project involves a number of steps, depending on the type of project and how the project is version controlled. For this example, we will assume that the project is a Java project and managed in Git. For this, we will use the Release Git Plugin.

The steps required to release a Java/Git project are:

1. Check for dependencies on integration builds of other projects, libraries, etc.
2. Check for plugins that are integration builds
3. Ensure the project is a Git project
4. Perform a git pull
5. Ensure the project has no local changes
6. Ensure the project changes have been pushed to the remote
7. Ensure there isn’t a tag in the Git repository for the version being released
8. Creates a tag whose name is the version being released (i.e. 1.0.8)
9. Publishes the project’s artifacts (publications) using the publishWorkflow of the project

Luckily, the Release Git Plugin does most of the work. All you need to do is add a few things to your build file and you will be able to release projects quickly and easily.

Publish Workflow

First, add the publish workflow. This is the process that Savant uses to publish the project’s artifacts. Here’s a sample publish workflow:

project(...) {
  publishWorkflow {
    subversion(repository: "http://svn.mycompany.com/savant-repository")
  }
}

This workflow instructs Savant to publish the project’s artifacts to the Subversion repository located at http://svn.mycompany.com/savant-repository.

Release Git Plugin

Next, include the Release Git Plugin in the build file:

release = loadPlugin(id: "org.savantbuild.plugin:release-git:0.1.0")

Target

Finally, add a target to the build file that will run the release:

target(name: "release", description: "Releases a full version of the project", dependsOn: ["test"]) {
  release.release()
}

That’s it! Your project should now be setup to be released using the process described above.