Role in the IKE Ecosystem

ike-example-ws is a coordination layer, not a component repo. It holds no production artifacts and contributes no code to releases. Its job is to make multi-repo operations — cross-repo feature branches, coordinated releases, dependency-version alignment — work from one command rather than four.

The two component-repo templates it complements:

Subprojects

workspace.yaml declares two consumer-side subprojects this workspace manages:

The foundation repos (ike-tooling, ike-docs, ike-platform) are intentionally not workspace subprojects — they are upstream infrastructure consumed at their released versions from Nexus, not co-developed inside this workspace. See the comment block in workspace.yaml for the rationale (self-bootstrap concerns for ike-tooling, parent-cycle concerns for ike-platform).

Release Cascade

ike-tooling -> ike-docs -> ike-platform -> { example-project, doc-example } -> [ike-example-ws]

ike-example-ws is the last link in the cascade. Its role is to verify — through its integration tests — that releasing the full cascade produces consumable artifacts on Nexus before any tags are cut on the component repos.

Layout

ike-example-ws/
├── workspace.yaml              (1)
├── pom.xml                     (2)
├── ike-docs/                   (3)
├── ike-platform/               (3)
├── example-project/            (3)
├── doc-example/                (3)
├── its/                        (4)
└── src/site/                   (5)

Key Workspace Commands

# Bootstrap: clone all subproject repos from their remotes
mvn ws:scaffold-init

# Status: snapshot of workspace state, alignment, dirty repos
mvn ws:overview

# Full reactor build of all cloned subprojects
mvn clean install

# Daily-driver: pull, refresh-main, push across the workspace
mvn ws:sync

# Coordinated feature branch across all subprojects
mvn ws:feature-start-publish -Dfeature=my-feature
mvn ws:feature-finish-squash-publish -Dfeature=my-feature

# Coordinated multi-repo release
mvn ws:release-draft       # preview
mvn ws:release-publish     # execute

For the full reference of all 50 ws:* goals, see the ws:* Goal Reference^[6] on the IKE Platform site. For first-time setup of a workspace, see Workspace Getting Started^[7].

When to Copy This Template

When creating a new IKE workspace aggregator (e.g., a workspace that holds a different set of subprojects, or one that adds new subprojects to the cascade), copy:

Discipline Rules

1. Use ws:* goals, never raw git for workspace ops. The whole point of the workspace plugin is that one command stays coherent across all subprojects. Reaching into one subproject with raw git breaks the abstraction.
2. All subprojects track the workspace’s git branch. No per-subproject branch opt-out. See ike-issues#233^[8] for the alignment model.
3. Component repos commit and push direct to main. No PRs in the IKE-Network organization. Releases cut from main via ws:release-publish.

Not published to Maven Central

ike-example-ws is a reference template for an IKE workspace aggregator, not a library. It holds no production artifacts and is deliberately not published to Maven Central — nothing should ever declare a dependency on it. You consume it by copying its workspace.yaml, aggregator pom.xml, and src/site/ into a workspace of your own. The IKE foundation (ike-base-parent, ike-tooling, ike-docs, ike-platform) is the part published to Central and meant to be inherited; see the IKE Network landing page^[9] for the foundation/examples split.

Resources