Get the Latest Build

ArcadeDB ships a new official release roughly once a month, but every commit merged into the main branch is also packaged as a development build (a SNAPSHOT). If your fix has already landed on main and you don’t want to wait for the next monthly release, you have two options:

  1. Build it yourself locally — fastest if you already have a JDK and Maven, and produces the same artifacts the CI does.

  2. Pull the SNAPSHOT from Maven Central — no toolchain required; just wait ~15 minutes after the commit lands.

Both options give you the exact same code — the difference is whether the bytes are produced on your machine or on the GitHub Actions runner.

Option 1: Build it Yourself

You’ll need:

  • JDK 21 or newer — check with java -version.

  • Maven 3.9+ — check with mvn -version.

  • (optional) Docker Desktop — only required if you want a local Docker image; skip the -Pdocker profile otherwise.

Steps:

# 1. Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/ArcadeData/arcadedb.git
cd arcadedb

# 2. Build the project (skip tests for a faster build)
mvn clean install -DskipTests -Pdocker

The -Pdocker profile additionally builds and tags Docker images on your local Docker daemon. After the build completes you’ll find them with:

docker images | grep arcadedata/arcadedb

You will see images such as arcadedata/arcadedb:latest, arcadedata/arcadedb-minimal:latest, and arcadedata/arcadedb-headless:latest, each also tagged with the snapshot version (for example 26.5.1-SNAPSHOT). If you don’t need Docker, just drop -Pdocker from the command.

The packaged distributions (tar.gz and zip) are produced in:

package/target/

Look for files named arcadedb-<version>-SNAPSHOT-base.tar.gz, arcadedb-<version>-SNAPSHOT-base.zip, and the headless variants. Unpack one of them and follow the same launch instructions as a stable release — see Installation from Binaries.

A clean build from scratch typically takes 2–4 minutes on a modern laptop. Re-runs are noticeably faster thanks to Maven’s incremental compilation and dependency cache.

Option 2: Wait ~15 Minutes for the Maven Central SNAPSHOT

Every push to main triggers a GitHub Actions deploy workflow. As long as the build passes, it publishes the artifacts to Maven Central’s snapshots repository — typically within ~15 minutes from the commit.

To consume the SNAPSHOT in your own project, point your build at the Maven Central snapshots repository.

Maven (pom.xml):

<repositories>
  <repository>
    <id>central-snapshots</id>
    <url>https://central.sonatype.com/repository/maven-snapshots/</url>
    <releases><enabled>false</enabled></releases>
    <snapshots><enabled>true</enabled></snapshots>
  </repository>
</repositories>

<dependencies>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>com.arcadedb</groupId>
    <artifactId>arcadedb-engine</artifactId>
    <version>26.5.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
  </dependency>
</dependencies>

Gradle (build.gradle):

repositories {
  maven { url 'https://central.sonatype.com/repository/maven-snapshots/' }
}

dependencies {
  implementation 'com.arcadedb:arcadedb-engine:26.5.1-SNAPSHOT'
}
Replace 26.5.1-SNAPSHOT with the version reported in the pom.xml of the main branch at the time of your build. The version is bumped after each official release, so the value changes over time.

To force Maven to re-resolve the latest snapshot (instead of using the locally cached one), pass the -U flag: mvn -U clean install.

Verifying You Have the Build You Expect

A SNAPSHOT distribution includes a build.number file at its root. Open it to confirm the exact commit hash and build timestamp:

cat arcadedb-<version>-SNAPSHOT/build.number

If you open an issue against a SNAPSHOT build, please include the contents of this file — see Report an Issue.

When to Use Which Option

If you…​ Use

Need to test a fix immediately and have JDK/Maven installed

Build it yourself

Want a Docker image of the snapshot on your local machine

Build it yourself with -Pdocker

Don’t want to install a toolchain

Wait for the Maven Central snapshot

Are integrating ArcadeDB as a library dependency in your own project

Maven Central snapshot (with the repository declared in your build)

Need to reproduce CI behavior exactly

Maven Central snapshot