If you’ve ever wanted to share a Java library without setting up a full Maven Central or OSSRH workflow, JitPack.io is a developer-friendly alternative that lets you publish directly from GitHub. No Sonatype signups. No GPG keys. No ticket systems. Just a git push and you’re live.

In this post, I’ll show you how I published my own Java project, cli-power-tools, using JitPack — and how you can do the same in under 10 minutes.

💡 What Is JitPack?

JitPack is a free service that builds your Maven or Gradle project directly from your GitHub repo. It hosts your builds as Maven artifacts and gives you a public Maven repository to consume them — perfect for fast prototyping, internal tools, or open-source utilities.

✅ Why Use JitPack?

  • 📦 No manual publishing
  • 🔒 No account or credentials needed
  • 🛠 Built from GitHub commits, branches, or tags
  • 🔗 Generates a hosted Maven repo for you

🧪 Example: Publishing cli-power-tools

Let’s walk through how cli-power-tools, a small utility for CLI-based Java apps, is published with JitPack.

1. 📁 Structure Your Project

Make sure your project is a standard Java build (Maven or Gradle). Here’s what cli-power-tools uses:

  • Java 17
  • Maven (pom.xml)
  • GitHub-hosted

💡 JitPack supports both Maven and Gradle builds out of the box.

2. 📦 Build with JitPack

Go to https://jitpack.io and paste in your GitHub repo URL:

teggr/cli-power-tools

Click "Look Up", then select a tag, branch, or commit and click "Get it".

JitPack will generate Maven coordinates like this:

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.github.teggr</groupId>
  <artifactId>cli-power-tools</artifactId>
  <version>main-SNAPSHOT</version>
</dependency>

💻 Consuming cli-power-tools

To use this library in your own project:

<repositories>
  <repository>
    <id>jitpack.io</id>
    <url>https://jitpack.io</url>
  </repository>
</repositories>

<dependencies>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>com.github.teggr</groupId>
    <artifactId>cli-power-tools</artifactId>
    <version>main-SNAPSHOT</version>
  </dependency>
</dependencies>

🏷 Tag a Release (Optional, but Recommended)

JitPack builds from tags, commits, or branches. For stable versioning, create a Git tag:

git tag v1.0.0
git push origin v1.0.0

🧩 Troubleshooting Tips

  • ✅ Ensure your GitHub repo is public
  • 🔍 If your build fails, inspect logs from the JitPack UI
  • 📦 Make sure all plugins/dependencies in your pom.xml are available in public repositories

🏁 Final Thoughts

JitPack is a super simple way to share Java libraries with minimal friction. For internal tools, experimental libraries, or lightweight open-source utilities, it’s a great alternative to the traditional Maven Central pipeline. There's also paid options for more serious use cases and private repositories.

If you want to check out or use cli-power-tools, you can try it immediately with:

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.github.teggr</groupId>
  <artifactId>cli-power-tools</artifactId>
  <version>main-SNAPSHOT</version>
</dependency>

Happy hacking! 🚀

🔗 Resources