---
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id: 2755adb0458d8db49376e6d8b4859229c306d1bb709dc0c7ba23f3c1267ecdc2
title: Getting Information About Metadata Types
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version: current
locale: en-us
portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/developer/current/en-us/platform/salesforce-migration-guide/guides/daas/forcemigrationtool-helpertargets.md
canonical_url: https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/platform/salesforce-migration-guide/guide/forcemigrationtool-helpertargets.html
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content_type: documentation
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  - Ant Migration Tool Guide
  - Platform Developer Content
---

# Getting Information About Metadata Types

**note:** The Ant Migration Tool is retired with Spring ’24. The tool continues to function as-is for future API versions but isn’t updated with new functionality and isn’t supported.  If Salesforce adds a new feature that is incompatible with Ant, the Ant Migration Tool won't be updated to support it. To manage metadata changes, switch to Salesforce CLI for a modern, supported developer experience.

You sometimes need to experiment with the composition of your package.xml manifest file before you settle on the final version that retrieves or deploys the metadata that you want. There are a couple of helper targets, `<sf:describeMetadata>` and `<sf:listMetadata>`, that are useful for gathering the relevant information during this experimentation period. The build.xml file specifies a series of commands to be executed by Ant. Within the build.xml file are named targets that process a series of commands when you run Ant with a target name.