Bit of a late response, sorry...
> Maybe not one for packaging only, but as you mentioned configuration, staging
> and maybe deployment. Not sure if bundling them all into one works, any other
> suggestions?
Would it be worth considering splitting based on sections of the artifact lifecycle (build -> package -> deploy -> manage) and/or related user groups (developer -> build/release engineer -> deployer -> administrator)?
Currently, "build" and "package" is pretty closely linked in Java EE (at least, considering the EAR or other Java EE artifact as being the final deliverable and ignoring things like external configuration files etc.) but I have seen cases where parts of the application descriptors were specified by groups other than the development team.
Deployment and management feel fundamentally different in some sense since they deal with configuration information that is not present in the source package and often may not even be disclosed to those responsible for the build/package lifecycle.
ap
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Andrew Phillips
jclouds