@Hannes, the environment class in Jenkins core can have one more method with a return type boolean which by default always returns false. The method can be override in the release wrapper class of the release plugin. When the release wrapper class of the release plugin returns a new environment. We override the boolean method to return true if the default build needs to be override. I hope this give you some details.

The option to override the default build can be provided in the UI too.

@Hannes, Environment class ( see the Build Environment UI) is the handshake object between build job and jenkins core, so it makes sense to put some way to notify the core via Environment

Could you elaborate more on 'work around'?? is it from UI or from the backend? In UI, perhaps we can simplify it by just adding one more flat 'skip default build' and have the pre release step to do the maven release

see JENKINS-27875

@Harsh
I don't exactly know what you mean but it sounds like a complicated workaround

I would also prefer to get it really fixed in a clean way instead!
VOTE

We found a way to have the jenkins release-plugin to notify Jenkins core to skip the default build

1. Introduce a ‘release build step’, once it is executed and return back to Jenkins core[1] with an instance of Environment [2]
2. Set the return Environment instance to null, or introduce an new flag in the environment class which notifies to override the default build.
3. Jenkins core’s Build.java ( and related concrete class ) skip the default build step base on the status of the return Env instance or the status of the new flag

This means we need help from Jenkins core dev to add new capability in Jenkins core to skip the default build step. Will file an RFE with Jenkins core

Thanks

[1] https://github.com/jenkinsci/jenkins/blob/master/core/src/main/java/hudson/model/Build.java

[2] https://github.com/jenkinsci/jenkins/blob/master/core/src/main/java/hudson/model/Environment.java

I need this as well. The current plugin we need to insert -B release:prepare release:perform to a pre-release step, the release ended up to build twice ( run the release and run the normal job) which make to build twice longer, and it is also very hacky. Harsh's proposal fits my need, and make maven release very nature to this plugin.