Skip to content

docs: clarify Maven staging behavior across release candidates #3963

New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Merged
andygrove merged 1 commit into from
Apr 16, 2026
Merged

docs: clarify Maven staging behavior across release candidates #3963

Changes from all commits
Commits
Show all changes
1 commit
Select commit
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
16 changes: 14 additions & 2 deletions docs/source/contributor-guide/release_process.md
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -302,8 +302,13 @@ Creating Nexus staging repository
In the Nexus repository UI (https://repository.apache.org/) locate and verify the artifacts in
staging (https://central.sonatype.org/publish/release/#locate-and-examine-your-staging-repository).

If the artifacts appear to be correct, then close and release the repository so it is made visible (this should
actually happen automatically when running the script).
The script closes the staging repository but does not release it. Releasing to Maven Central is a manual step
performed only after the vote passes (see [Publishing Maven Artifacts](#publishing-maven-artifacts) below).

Note that the Maven artifacts are always published under the final release version (e.g. `0.13.0`), not the RC
version — the `-rc1` / `-rc2` suffix only appears in the git tag and the source tarball in SVN. Because the script
creates a new staging repository on each run, re-staging the same version for a subsequent RC is supported as long
as no staging repository for that version has been released to Maven Central.

### Create the Release Candidate Tarball

Expand Down Expand Up @@ -345,6 +350,13 @@ If the vote does not pass, address the issues raised, increment the release cand
the [Tag the Release Candidate](#tag-the-release-candidate) step. For example, the next attempt would be tagged
`0.13.0-rc2`.

Before staging the next RC, drop the previous RC's staging repository in the
[Nexus UI](https://repository.apache.org/#stagingRepositories) by selecting it and clicking "Drop". This avoids
leaving multiple closed staging repositories for the same version and prevents accidentally releasing the wrong
one when the vote eventually passes. The Maven version (e.g. `0.13.0`) is shared across all RCs, so each run of
`publish-to-maven.sh` creates a new staging repository for the same GAV — only one of them should ever be
released to Maven Central.

## Publishing Binary Releases

Once the vote passes, we can publish the source and binary releases.
Expand Down
Loading
⚡