In Java EE, binaries first of all include the packaged enterprise application in form of an archive. Following the approach of zero-dependency applications results in building and packaging the project into a thin WAR file, containing only the application's business logic. This build action includes to resolve required dependencies, compile Java sources, and package the binary classes and other files into the archive. The WAR files are the first produced artifact within the build pipeline.

The application artifacts are built using build systems such as Maven or Gradle, which are installed and executed on the CI server. Usually, the project build already executes basic code level tests. Tests that are executed on code level without requiring a container runtime can verify the behavior of classes and components early in the pipeline. The Continuous Delivery approach of failing fast and breaking the build as early as possible minimizes turnaround times.

If required, build systems can publish the artifacts onto an artifact repository. Artifact repositories, such as Sonatype Nexus or JFrog Artifactory, save the built artifact versions for later retrieval. However, if the application is shipped in Linux containers, the artifact doesn't necessarily have to be deployed onto a repository.

As shown in Chapter 2, Designing and Structuring Java Enterprise Applications, a Java project is built using Maven via the command mvn package. The package phase compiles all Java production sources, compiles and executes the test sources, and packages the application in our case, to a WAR file. The CI server executes a build system command similar to this to build the artifact in its local workspace directory. The artifact can be deployed to an artifact repository, for example, using the mvn deploy command, to be used in subsequent steps; or it will be taken directly from the workspace directory.