What it does

When registered in a workspace’s .mvn/extensions.xml, the extension hooks Maven 4’s ModelTransformer SPI to:

1. Inject alias indirections at file-model stage. The bundled manifest (META-INF/ike/version-aliases.yaml) maps legacy short-name property idioms — junit-jupiter.version, maven-compiler-plugin.version, ike-tooling.version, etc. — to their canonical typed-marker form. When a consumer’s POM declares one side of an alias pair, the extension injects the other side as a one-line indirection, so both names resolve to the same value.
2. Fail fast on unresolved canonical references at effective-model stage. If a <dependency> or <plugin> <version> references ${GGAA} (or the legacy ${G·A}) and no such property is declared (locally, by inheritance, or by alias injection), the build fails with an actionable error message naming the property, the artifact block, and the manifest sources consulted.
3. Detect ${G.A} typos — the common mistake of typing regular periods where the canonical typed-marker form was meant. The extension tries three corrections per dot position (right-to-left): substitute the dot with GA; same plus a VERSION terminal facet; substitute with the legacy ·. If any candidate is declared, the build fails with a "did you mean ${GGAAVERSION}?" hint.
4. Validate release policies — for any property whose name ends in __POLICY (or the legacy ·policy), the value must be one of the ReleasePolicy rungs: notify, verify, propose, integrate, release. An unrecognized value fails the build with the valid set and a closest-match "did you mean" hint.

A project-local .mvn/version-aliases.yaml can override or extend the bundled defaults. Anything declared project-local takes precedence per-key over the bundled manifest.

See IKE-VERSIONS.md^[3] for the full convention specification.

Stability commitment

This artifact does exactly the three things above. It never grows scope. Future version-management features (alignment, cascade integration, lint) ship as goals in ike-workspace-maven-plugin or as separate extensions. The extension’s dependency surface stays at the Maven 4 API jars (compile scope, loaded into the extension classloader). Manifest parsing is hand-rolled to keep the artifact dependency-free.

Versioned independently of the ike-platform^[4] release cadence. If different behavior is ever needed, a separate extension is added rather than evolving this one.

Wiring

Declared in a workspace’s .mvn/extensions.xml alongside the existing IKE workspace extension:

<extensions>
    <extension>
        <groupId>network.ike.tooling</groupId>
        <artifactId>ike-workspace-extension</artifactId>
        <version>4</version>
    </extension>
    <extension>
        <groupId>network.ike.tooling</groupId>
        <artifactId>ike-version-management-extension</artifactId>
        <version>1</version>
    </extension>
</extensions>

ws:scaffold-init writes both entries into new workspaces. ws:scaffold-publish keeps them in sync. Versions are sourced from properties declared in ike-parent — operators do not maintain them by hand.

Coordinates

<dependency>
    <groupId>network.ike.tooling</groupId>
    <artifactId>ike-version-management-extension</artifactId>
    <version>1</version>
</dependency>

Available from Maven Central.

Tracking

• IKE-Network/ike-issues#470^[5] — the parent epic.
• IKE-Network/ike-issues#471^[6] — IKE-VERSIONS.md, the convention standard.
• IKE-Network/ike-issues#472^[7] — this extension.
• IKE-Network/ike-issues#473^[8] — ike-base-parent ships the alias manifest.