artifactId

artifactId is a term used in software development to designate the identifier of a build artifact within a repository or dependency system. It is most closely associated with Maven and other Java build ecosystems, but the concept appears in various tools to distinguish artifacts such as libraries, applications, or modules.

In Maven, artifactId is part of the coordinates that identify a specific artifact alongside groupId and version. The artifactId identifies the artifact within the given group and typically reflects the project or module name. The final artifact file is named using the pattern artifactId-version(-classifier).extension, for example, gson-2.8.5.jar.

Artifacts are stored and retrieved from local and remote repositories using these coordinates. A Maven Central-style path might look like /com/google/code/gson/gson/2.8.5/gson-2.8.5.jar, illustrating how groupId, artifactId, and version together locate the artifact.

In Gradle and other modern build systems, a similar concept exists where the artifact’s identifier corresponds to the name or artifactId in dependencies declared as group, name, and version. The artifactId tends to remain stable for a project, though it can change if the project undergoes a major reorganization or packaging shift.

Best practices include choosing a concise, descriptive artifactId, keeping it consistent with the project name, and ensuring each module in a multi-module project has a distinct artifactId. This aids dependency resolution, artifact publishing, and repository organization.