Publishing

The publish { } block inside kreate { project { } } integrates artifact publishing into your Gradle build. Kreate supports two publish targets out of the box:

Maven Central via the Gradle Maven Publish Plugin by Vanniktech
GitLab Package Registry via the standard Gradle maven-publish plugin with CI job token authentication

Publishing is disabled by default. To use it, you must manually apply the required plugins and then enable it in Kreate.

Required Plugins

For GitLab publishing, apply the standard maven-publish plugin:

plugins {
    `maven-publish`
}

For Maven Central publishing, apply the Vanniktech Maven Publish Plugin:

plugins {
    id("com.vanniktech.maven.publish") version "0.30.0" // Use the latest version
}

Kreate Configuration

Enable the publishing module:

kreate {
    project {
        publish {
            enabled.set(true)
        }
    }
}

How It Works

When enabled is true, Kreate evaluates each repository target independently. A repository is only configured when its own enabled property is also true. The two targets are completely independent and can be active simultaneously.

publish { enabled = true }
│
├── repositories.mavenCentral { enabled = true }
│ └── requires com.vanniktech.maven.publish plugin
│ └── calls publishToMavenCentral(automaticRelease)
│ └── calls signAllPublications() if signPublications = true
│ └── sets coordinates(group, name, version)
│ └── configures pom { ... }
│
└── repositories.gitlab { enabled = true }
└── requires maven-publish plugin
└── reads CI_JOB_TOKEN, CI_PROJECT_ID, CI_API_V4_URL from env
└── registers Maven repository with HttpHeaderAuthentication
└── configures pom { ... } on all MavenPublication tasks

Top-Level Properties

Property	Type	Default	Description
`enabled`	`Property<Boolean>`	`false`	Master switch — must be `true` for any publishing to be configured
`inceptionYear`	`Property<Int>`	`2024`	Written into the POM `<inceptionYear>` field
`website`	`Property<String>`	(not set)	Written into the POM `<url>` field

All POM metadata is shared between both Maven Central and GitLab publish targets. Configure it once in pom { } and Kreate applies it to both.

Next Steps

Maven Central Publishing: GPG signing and automatic releases
GitLab Package Registry: CI integration and job token auth
POM Configuration: Licenses, SCM, and developer metadata
Examples: Practical publishing setups and snippets

02 May 2026