Loading Drools/KIE Workbench artifacts directly from the repository

I finally managed to get this solved. Below is a working example which loads the Drools artifact from the KIE-repository via HTTP and executes the rules:

package kieTest;

import java.util.Scanner;

import org.drools.compiler.kproject.ReleaseIdImpl;
import org.kie.api.KieServices;
import org.kie.api.builder.KieScanner;
import org.kie.api.runtime.KieContainer;
import org.kie.api.runtime.StatelessKieSession;

public class MainKieTest {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        // works even without -SNAPSHOT versions
        String url = "http://localhost:8080/kie-drools/maven2/de/test/Test/1.2.3/Test-1.2.3.jar";

        // make sure you use "LATEST" here!
        ReleaseIdImpl releaseId = new ReleaseIdImpl("de.test", "Test", "LATEST");

        KieServices ks = KieServices.Factory.get();

        ks.getResources().newUrlResource(url);

        KieContainer kieContainer = ks.newKieContainer(releaseId);

        // check every 5 seconds if there is a new version at the URL
        KieScanner kieScanner = ks.newKieScanner(kieContainer);
        kieScanner.start(5000L);
        // alternatively:
        // kieScanner.scanNow();

        Scanner scanner = new Scanner(System.in);
        while (true) {
            runRule(kieContainer);
            System.out.println("Press enter in order to run the test again....");
            scanner.nextLine();
        }
    }

    private static void runRule(KieContainer kieKontainer) {
        StatelessKieSession kSession = kieKontainer.newStatelessKieSession("testSession");
        kSession.setGlobal("out", System.out);
        kSession.execute("testRuleAgain");
    }
}

When searching for the solution, I found the following link helpful:

• http://blog.athico.com/2013/12/deployment-with-drools-60.html

I hope someone finds this useful when getting SO as first search result 😉