Every time a component's artifacts are modified and imported, a new version of the component is created. So a component might have several versions in CodeStation, and each version is unique.
Artifacts can be imported automatically or manually. By default, a complete copy of an artifact's content is imported into CodeStation. When you copy the artifact to CodeStation, the original artifact content is never modified.
A version can be full or incremental. A full version contains all component artifacts; an incremental version contains only artifacts that are different from the previous version
Storing artifacts in CodeStation provides several benefits, such as tamper-proof storage, and the ability to review and validate artifacts with the IBM UrbanCode Deploy user interface. But if you have storage concerns or use a tool like Maven, you can limit CodeStation to using references to the artifacts instead of copying them into CodeStation.