How to download the latest artifact from Artifactory repository?

Something like the following bash script will retrieve the lastest com.company:artifact snapshot from the snapshot repo:

# Artifactory location
server=http://artifactory.company.com/artifactory
repo=snapshot

# Maven artifact location
name=artifact
artifact=com/company/$name
path=$server/$repo/$artifact
version=$(curl -s $path/maven-metadata.xml | grep latest | sed "s/.*<latest>\([^<]*\)<\/latest>.*/\1/")
build=$(curl -s $path/$version/maven-metadata.xml | grep '<value>' | head -1 | sed "s/.*<value>\([^<]*\)<\/value>.*/\1/")
jar=$name-$build.jar
url=$path/$version/$jar

# Download
echo $url
wget -q -N $url

It feels a bit dirty, yes, but it gets the job done.

Using shell/unix tools

1. curl 'http://$artiserver/artifactory/api/storage/$repokey/$path/$version/?lastModified'

The above command responds with a JSON with two elements - "uri" and "lastModified"

2. Fetching the link in the uri returns another JSON which has the "downloadUri" of the artifact.

3. Fetch the link in the "downloadUri" and you have the latest artefact.

Using Jenkins Artifactory plugin

(Requires Pro) to resolve and download latest artifact, if Jenkins Artifactory plugin was used to publish to artifactory in another job:

1. Select Generic Artifactory Integration
2. Use Resolved Artifacts as ${repokey}:**/${component}*.jar;status=${STATUS}@${PUBLISH_BUILDJOB}#LATEST=>${targetDir}

Artifactory has a good extensive REST-API and almost anything that can be done in the UI (perhaps even more) can also be done using simple HTTP requests.

The feature that you mention - retrieving the latest artifact, does indeed require the Pro edition; but it can also be achieved with a bit of work on your side and a few basic scripts.

Option 1 - Search:

Perform a GAVC search on a set of group ID and artifact ID coordinates to retrieve all existing versions of that set; then you can use any version string comparison algorithm to determine the latest version.

Option 2 - the Maven way:

Artifactory generates a standard XML metadata that is to be consumed by Maven, because Maven is faced with the same problem - determining the latest version; The metadata lists all available versions of an artifact and is generated for every artifact level folder; with a simple GET request and some XML parsing, you can discover the latest version.