The Java Library Best Practices are a set of rules that we believe will minimize problems for consumers of interconnected Java libraries. These practices come from decades of aggregated experience in maintaining open source Java libraries and are informed by many hard-learned lessons from mistakes that have been made. We have found that following these rules will result in higher quality Java libraries with fewer dependency conflicts and other kinds of problems. The list is open-ended, so new ones may be added from time to time.

• JLBP-1: Minimize dependencies
• JLBP-2: Minimize API surface
• JLBP-3: Use Semantic versioning
• JLBP-4: Avoid dependencies on unstable libraries and features
• JLBP-5: Avoid dependencies that overlap classes with other dependencies
• JLBP-6: Package and artifact renaming rules
• JLBP-7: Make breaking transitions easy
• JLBP-8: Advance widely used functionality to a stable version