REST API and User Plugins

In order to integrate with automation tools such as Build Servers and Continuous Integration systems, Artifactory exposes an extensive REST API that provides access to its features anywhere in the development cycle. Through the API you can manage builds, repositories and artifacts, you can perform searches, apply configurations, perform maintenance tasks and more. However, even with an extensive API, it’s not always possible to accommodate the requirements of every organization. This is where User Plugins come in.

User plugins give you a simple way to implement complex, custom behavior by extending the functionality of Artifactory. This infrastructure presents a long list of entry points which effectively extends the Artifactory REST API giving you enormous freedom to implement virtually any custom behavior in your binary management workflow. It includes scheduling tasks, managing security and authentication, license compliance and open source governance, artifact resolution and deployment, build integration and promotion logic, maintenance and cleanup and more. To keep things simple, User Plugins are written as Groovy scripts and have a simple DSL to wrap them as closures within the extension points. The plugins can be changed and redeployed on-the-fly, and can even be debugged – all from within your favorite IDE.