What exactly is a Maven Snapshot and why do we need it?

A Maven snapshot is a version of a Maven artifact that is under active development and has not been released yet. It is typically used to provide access to the latest code changes for testing or integration purposes.

Maven snapshots are identified by a version number that ends in -SNAPSHOT, for example 1.0-SNAPSHOT. They are considered to be "in-progress" versions of the artifact, and can be updated multiple times with new code changes.

Snapshots are stored in a separate repository than the released versions of artifacts. By default, Maven looks for snapshots in the snapshot repository, which is defined in the settings.xml file.

Here is an example of a snapshot definition in a Maven pom.xml file:

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.example</groupId>
  <artifactId>my-artifact</artifactId>
  <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
</dependency>

You can use snapshots to test the latest code changes of a dependency before it is released. Snapshots can be useful for continuous integration and deployment scenarios, where you want to test the latest code changes as part of the build process.

However, you should be aware that snapshots are not considered stable and may change from one build to the next. It is generally recommended to use released versions of artifacts in production environments.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions.