After defining a component's source and processes, you import its artifacts into Serena Release Automation's artifact repository CodeStation. Artifacts can be imported automatically or manually. By default, a complete copy of an artifact's content is imported into CodeStation (the original artifacts are untouched). This provides several benefits, such as tamper-proof storage, and the ability to review and validate artifacts with Serena Release Automation's user interface. But if you have storage concerns or use a tool like Maven, you can limit CodeStation to using references to the artifacts instead of actually copying them.
Each time a component is imported, including the first time, it is versioned. Versions can be assigned automatically by Serena Release Automation, applied manually, or come from a build server. Every time a component's artifacts are modified and reimported, a new version of the component is created. So a component might have several versions in CodeStation and each version will be unique.
A version can be full or incremental. A full version contains all component artifacts; an incremental version only contains artifacts modified since the previous version was created.
