kmp-library-publishing

Use the com.vanniktech.maven.publish plugin, which handles Sonatype staging, POM generation, sources and Dokka javadoc jars, and GPG signing. Configure coordinates and the pom block in mavenPublishing, then run ./gradlew publishAllPublicationsToMavenCentralRepository.

It is the de-facto standard Gradle plugin for publishing KMP libraries to Maven Central. It automates Sonatype OSSRH and Central Portal staging, signing, and strict POM requirements that are error-prone to wire manually with the base maven-publish plugin.

The kotlinx-binary-compatibility-validator plugin generates .api dump files tracking every public symbol. Run ./gradlew apiDump to record the API and ./gradlew apiCheck in CI to fail builds when the public API changes without a committed dump update.

Maven Central is the standard for public open-source libraries but requires a Sonatype account and GPG signing. GitHub Packages needs only a GitHub token and suits internal libraries or pre-release testing, and both can be configured together.

Common causes are missing POM fields (description, license, SCM, developers), unsigned artifacts, or a -SNAPSHOT suffix on a release version. The vanniktech plugin validates most of these, but the scm block and GPG key expiry are frequent failure points.

Split when sub-features have genuinely independent consumer surfaces, such as a core module versus a Compose UI layer versus test fakes. Publish them as separate artifacts aligned by a BOM, and always publish via the root bulk task rather than per-module tasks.