Jenkins Artifactory Plugin Release Management (Legacy)

Legacy workflow: Do not design a new release process around Jenkins Artifactory Plugin staging. Prefer Jenkins JFrog Plugin and current JFrog Artifactory build promotion workflows.

Existing Maven and Gradle jobs can still depend on release staging in the legacy Jenkins Artifactory Plugin. The code retains the Enable Artifactory release management, Build and Release to Artifactory, and Artifactory Release Promotion surfaces.

Prepare to Maintain a Staging Job

Record these values before you change the job:

Release and next-development version rules
Target repository
Version control system (VCS) branch and tag behavior
Build name and number
Jenkins permissions
Promotion target

Test against a non-production repository and branch.

Existing Maven Flow

The legacy plugin can update POM versions, run the Maven build, commit or tag release changes, set the next development version, and publish build-info. On failure it attempts rollback, but you still need to review the repository and VCS state.

Existing Gradle Flow

The Gradle flow reads and updates configured properties in gradle.properties, runs the selected tasks, and can create release branch and tag changes. Preserve property names exactly while the job remains on this workflow.

Promotion and Permissions

Promotion can set a build status and optionally move or copy artifacts to another repository. Jenkins users need the plugin's release or promote permissions, and the Artifactory identity needs permissions for the target repository.

Exported Staging Variables

The staging process exports variables with the RT_RELEASE_STAGING_ prefix. If downstream steps consume them, include those dependencies in the migration inventory.

Migrate the Workflow

To migrate the workflow off legacy release staging:

Separate versioning and VCS automation from artifact publication and promotion.
Reimplement each part with maintained Jenkins Pipeline and JFrog CLI or Artifactory promotion capabilities.
Compare tags, committed versions, artifact paths, build-info, and promotion status.
Retire legacy staging only after you have covered rollback and permission behavior.

For more information about historical parameters, see the Jenkins Artifactory Plugin source.