Alfresco is providing its SDK as a Maven based development kit. It provides a quick and easy approach to develop your own Alfresco extensions. You can use this SDK in any integrated development environment (IDE), and even in the console. However, we'll use Spring Tool Suite (STS) in this chapter. With this SDK you can develop, package, test, run, document and release your Alfresco extension project. It is important to note that while previous versions of the Alfresco SDK were based around Ant, the latest versions of the SDK are based on Maven.
The Alfresco SDK includes three different Maven archetypes described below. These archetypes aim to provide a standardized approach to development, release, and deployment of Alfresco extensions.