Maven release plugin | Best practice | It is better to modify the version in the POM directly or modify the release.properties file

I have a question about best practices and would appreciate the advice of experts
I've been working with maven-release-plugin for several years, and I have a doubt that what is better to release a new version. Normally I modify the release.properties file with the new version to be released and the next one in snapshot, for example:

project.rel.com.blabla.generic-module\:my-module=1.1.0
project.dev.com.blabla.generic-module\:my-module=2.0.0-SNAPSHOT

After commit this file modified, i make mvn release:prepare release:perform from build server, and then, version 1.1.0 is released and 2.0.0-SNAPSHOT is generated.

My question is if it is better to modify each pom.xml of the project with the version that I want to release or the mechanism that I use is valid.

Thanks in advance

You should not modify the release.properties manually.

If you just use mvn release:prepare release:perform --batch-mode the version is automatically incremented for example from 1.0.0-SNAPSHOT to 1.0.0 and the next development version will be 1.0.1-SNAPSHOT

If you like to change the version to be used for release you can simply do that via:

mvn -DreleaseVersion=2.0.0 release:prepare release:perform --batch-mode

If you like to define the release version and next developmentVersion you can do that via:

mvn -DreleaseVersion=2.0.0 -DdevelopmentVersion=2.1.0-SNAPSHOT release:prepare release:perform --batch-mode

If you have a multi module build you should configure to use autoVersionSubmodules=true which usually is defined in your pom and not manually from command line.

• https://maven.apache.org/maven-release/maven-release-plugin/prepare-mojo.html
• https://maven.apache.org/maven-release/maven-release-plugin/examples/non-interactive-release.html