Generic Repositories in JFrog Artifactory¶

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Generic repositories in JFrog Artifactory are the most flexible storage type. They store any binary file without package format constraints — making them perfect for build artifacts, scripts, config files, database dumps, infrastructure binaries, and more.

All steps use JFrog SaaS at https://<company>.jfrog.io.

When to Use Generic Repositories¶

Use a Generic repository when:

The artifact is not tied to a specific package manager (e.g., not Maven, npm, PyPI)
You need to store build outputs (e.g., compiled binaries, *.tar.gz distributions)
You want to store scripts and configuration files with versioning
You are storing ML models (.pkl, .onnx, .gguf, safetensors)
You have custom tools or CLI binaries to share across teams

Step 1: Create a Local Generic Repository¶

Go to Administration → Repositories → + New Repository
Select Local
Choose Generic
Set Repository Key: binaries-local
Click Create Local Repository

Step 2: Create a Remote Generic Repository¶

You can proxy any HTTP-accessible binary store via a Generic Remote:

Go to Administration → Repositories → + New Repository
Select Remote
Choose Generic
Set Repository Key: github-releases-remote
Set URL: https://github.com (This caches GitHub Release downloads through Artifactory)
Click Create Remote Repository

Step 3: Upload a File via the JFrog UI¶

Go to Application → Artifactory → Artifacts
Select binaries-local
Click Deploy (top right)
Drag and drop your file or select it
Set the Target Path (e.g., my-app/1.0.0/my-app-1.0.0.tar.gz)
Click Deploy

Step 4: Upload via JFrog CLI¶

# Upload a single file
jf rt upload my-app-1.0.0.tar.gz binaries-local/my-app/1.0.0/

# Upload with properties (key-value metadata)
jf rt upload my-app-1.0.0.tar.gz binaries-local/my-app/1.0.0/ \
  --props "version=1.0.0;env=production;team=platform"

# Upload all files matching a pattern
jf rt upload "dist/*.tar.gz" binaries-local/my-app/2.0.0/

Step 5: Download via JFrog CLI¶

# Download a specific file
jf rt download binaries-local/my-app/1.0.0/my-app-1.0.0.tar.gz ./

# Download files matching a pattern
jf rt download "binaries-local/my-app/1.0.0/*" ./downloads/

Step 6: Download via curl¶

curl -u your-username:your-access-token \
  -O "https://<company>.jfrog.io/artifactory/binaries-local/my-app/1.0.0/my-app-1.0.0.tar.gz"

Step 7: Search Artifacts by Properties¶

Once you upload with properties (key-value metadata), you can search by them:

# Find all production artifacts at version 1.0.0
jf rt search \
  --props "version=1.0.0;env=production" \
  binaries-local/

Organizing Your Generic Repo¶

A consistent folder structure makes generic repos easy to navigate:

binaries-local/
├── my-app/
│   ├── 1.0.0/
│   │   ├── my-app-1.0.0.tar.gz
│   │   └── my-app-1.0.0-sha256.txt
│   └── 2.0.0/
│       └── my-app-2.0.0.tar.gz
├── scripts/
│   └── deploy.sh
└── configs/
    └── nginx-prod.conf

Use Cases¶

Scenario	Solution
Store compiled binaries from CI	Upload `dist/*.tar.gz` to `binaries-local`
Share scripts across teams	Upload to `binaries-local/scripts/` with version paths
Store trained ML models	Upload `.pkl`, `.onnx` to `binaries-local/models/`
Cache GitHub Release downloads	Set up `github-releases-remote` as proxy
Attach metadata to artifacts	Use `--props` for build number, branch, environment

Next Steps¶

👉 JFrog CLI Basics 👉 ML Model Repositories

🧠 Quick Quiz¶

#

Which JFrog Artifactory repository type should you use to store compiled binaries that don't belong to any package manager format?

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