What is a Maven artifact?

Question

What is an artifact and why does Maven need it?

Answer 1

An artifact is a file, normally a JAR, that gets extended to a Maven repository.

A Maven build allows one or more artifacts, such as a concentrated JAR and a "sources" JAR.

All artifact has a group ID (normally a reversed domain name, similar com.example.foo), an artifact ID (just a name), and a version string. The three commonly uniquely recognize the artifact.

A project's dependencies are selected as artifacts.