• Publish to the GitLab Package Registry
  • Tokens
• Authenticate to the Package Registry with Gradle
  • Authenticate with a personal access token or deploy token in Gradle
  • Authenticate with a CI job token in Gradle
  • Naming convention
    • Endpoint URLs
  • Edit the Groovy DSL or Kotlin DSL
• Publish using Gradle
• Install a package
• Helpful hints
  • Create Maven packages with GitLab CI/CD by using Gradle
  • Publishing a package with the same name or version
  • Do not allow duplicate Maven packages
  • Request forwarding to Maven Central

Maven packages in the Package Registry

Publish Maven artifacts in your project’s Package Registry using Gradle. Then, install the packages whenever you need to use them as a dependency.

For documentation of the specific API endpoints that the Maven package manager client uses, see the Maven API documentation.

Learn how to build a Gradle package.

Publish to the GitLab Package Registry

Tokens

You need a token to publish a package. Different tokens are available depending on what you’re trying to achieve. For more information, review the guidance on tokens.

• If your organization uses two-factor authentication (2FA), you must use a personal access token with the scope set to api.
• If you publish a package via CI/CD pipelines, you must use a CI job token.

Create a token and save it to use later in the process.

Authenticate to the Package Registry with Gradle

Authenticate with a personal access token or deploy token in Gradle

In your GRADLE_USER_HOME directory, create a file gradle.properties with the following content:

gitLabPrivateToken=REPLACE_WITH_YOUR_TOKEN

Your token name depends on which token you use.

Add a repositories section to your build.gradle file:

repositories {
    maven {
        url "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/groups/<group>/-/packages/maven"
        name "GitLab"
        credentials(HttpHeaderCredentials) {
            name = 'REPLACE_WITH_TOKEN_NAME'
            value = gitLabPrivateToken
        }
        authentication {
            header(HttpHeaderAuthentication)
        }
    }
}

Or add it to your build.gradle.kts file if you are using Kotlin DSL:

repositories {
    maven {
        url = uri("https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/groups/<group>/-/packages/maven")
        name = "GitLab"
        credentials(HttpHeaderCredentials::class) {
            name = "REPLACE_WITH_TOKEN_NAME"
            value = findProperty("gitLabPrivateToken") as String?
        }
        authentication {
            create("header", HttpHeaderAuthentication::class)
        }
    }
}

Authenticate with a CI job token in Gradle

To authenticate with a CI job token, add a repositories section to your build.gradle file:

repositories {
    maven {
        url "${CI_API_V4_URL}/groups/<group>/-/packages/maven"
        name "GitLab"
        credentials(HttpHeaderCredentials) {
            name = 'Job-Token'
            value = System.getenv("CI_JOB_TOKEN")
        }
        authentication {
            header(HttpHeaderAuthentication)
        }
    }
}

Or add it to your build.gradle.kts file if you are using Kotlin DSL:

repositories {
    maven {
        url = uri("$CI_API_V4_URL/groups/<group>/-/packages/maven")
        name = "GitLab"
        credentials(HttpHeaderCredentials::class) {
            name = "Job-Token"
            value = System.getenv("CI_JOB_TOKEN")
        }
        authentication {
            create("header", HttpHeaderAuthentication::class)
        }
    }
}

Naming convention

You can use one of three API endpoints to install a Maven package. You must publish a package to a project, but note which endpoint you use to install the package. The option you choose determines the settings you add to your pom.xml file for publishing.

The three endpoints are:

• Project-level: Use when you have a few Maven packages that are not in the same GitLab group.
• Group-level: Use when installing packages from many different projects in the same GitLab group. GitLab does not guarantee the uniqueness of package names in the group. You can have two projects with the same package name and package version. As a result, GitLab serves whichever one is more recent.
• Instance-level: Use when installing many packages from different GitLab groups or in their own namespace.

Only packages with the same path as the project are exposed by the instance-level endpoint.

Endpoint URLs

In all cases, to publish a package, you need:

• A project-specific URL in the distributionManagement section.
• A repository and distributionManagement section.

Edit the Groovy DSL or Kotlin DSL

The Gradle Groovy DSL repositories section should look like this:

repositories {
    maven {
        url "<your_endpoint_url>"
        name "GitLab"
    }
}

In Kotlin DSL:

repositories {
    maven {
        url = uri("<your_endpoint_url>")
        name = "GitLab"
    }
}

• Replace <your_endpoint_url> with the endpoint you chose.

Publish using Gradle

Your token name depends on which token you use.

To publish a package by using Gradle:

1. Add the Gradle plugin maven-publish to the plugins section:

   In Groovy DSL:

   plugins {
       id 'java'
       id 'maven-publish'
   }
   

   In Kotlin DSL:

   plugins {
       java
       `maven-publish`
   }
   

2. Add a publishing section:

   In Groovy DSL:

   publishing {
       publications {
           library(MavenPublication) {
               from components.java
           }
       }
       repositories {
           maven {
               url "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/<PROJECT_ID>/packages/maven"
               credentials(HttpHeaderCredentials) {
                   name = "REPLACE_WITH_TOKEN_NAME"
                   value = gitLabPrivateToken // the variable resides in $GRADLE_USER_HOME/gradle.properties
               }
               authentication {
                   header(HttpHeaderAuthentication)
               }
           }
       }
   }
   

   In Kotlin DSL:

   publishing {
       publications {
           create<MavenPublication>("library") {
               from(components["java"])
           }
       }
       repositories {
           maven {
               url = uri("https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/<PROJECT_ID>/packages/maven")
               credentials(HttpHeaderCredentials::class) {
                   name = "REPLACE_WITH_TOKEN_NAME"
                   value =
                       findProperty("gitLabPrivateToken") as String? // the variable resides in $GRADLE_USER_HOME/gradle.properties
               }
               authentication {
                   create("header", HttpHeaderAuthentication::class)
               }
           }
       }
   }
   

3. Replace PROJECT_ID with your project ID, which you can find on your project’s home page.

4. Run the publish task:

   gradle publish
   

Go to your project’s Packages and registries page and view the published packages.

Install a package

To install a package from the GitLab Package Registry, you must configure the remote and authenticate. After configuring the remote and authenticate, you can install a package from a project, group, or namespace.

If multiple packages have the same name and version, when you install a package, the most recently-published package is retrieved.

Add a dependency to build.gradle in the dependencies section:

dependencies {
    implementation 'com.mycompany.mydepartment:my-project:1.0-SNAPSHOT'
}

Or to build.gradle.kts if you are using Kotlin DSL:

dependencies {
    implementation("com.mycompany.mydepartment:my-project:1.0-SNAPSHOT")
}

Helpful hints

For the complete list of helpful hints, see the Maven documentation.

Create Maven packages with GitLab CI/CD by using Gradle

You can create a package each time the main branch is updated.

1. Authenticate with a CI job token in Gradle.

2. Add a deploy job to your .gitlab-ci.yml file:

   deploy:
     image: gradle:6.5-jdk11
     script:
       - 'gradle publish'
     only:
       - main
   

3. Commit files to your repository.

When the pipeline is successful, the Maven package is created.

Publishing a package with the same name or version

When you publish a package with the same name and version as an existing package, the new package files are added to the existing package. You can still use the UI or API to access and view the existing package’s older assets.

Consider using the Packages API or the UI to delete older package versions.

Do not allow duplicate Maven packages

To prevent users from publishing duplicate Maven packages, you can use the GraphQl API or the UI.

In the UI:

1. For your group, go to Settings > Packages and registries.
2. Expand the Package Registry section.
3. Turn on the Do not allow duplicates toggle.
4. Optional. To allow some duplicate packages, in the Exceptions box, enter a regex pattern that matches the names and/or versions of packages you want to allow.

Your changes are automatically saved.

Request forwarding to Maven Central

When a Maven package is not found in the Package Registry, the request is forwarded to Maven Central.

When the feature flag is enabled, administrators can disable this behavior in the Continuous Integration settings.

There are many ways to configure your Maven project to request packages in Maven Central from GitLab. Maven repositories are queried in a specific order. By default, maven-central is usually checked first through the Super POM, so GitLab needs to be configured to be queried before maven-central.

Using GitLab as a mirror of the central proxy is one way to force GitLab to be queried in place of maven-central.

Maven forwarding is restricted to only the project level and group level endpoints. The instance-level endpoint has naming restrictions that prevent it from being used for packages that don’t follow that convention and also introduces too much security risk for supply-chain style attacks.