What role does the deploy command play in the build and publication process using Maven?

The mvn deploy command in Maven performs the publication of the built artifact (e.g., JAR, WAR) to a remote repository. This is usually the final step in the build and deployment process of a project, after compilation, testing, and packaging.

The main role of the deploy command:

• Uploads the artifact and its associated metadata to a remote repository (e.g., Nexus, Artifactory).
• Allows other projects or teams to use this artifact as a dependency.

Example usage:

mvn clean deploy

This will first clean previous builds, then build the project and publish the artifact to the configured repository.

It is important to note that for a successful deploy, access to the remote repository with write permissions must be configured in pom.xml or in Maven settings.