PluginDescriptor

Plugin descriptor, stored in META-INF/maven/plugin.xml in a plugin's jar artifact. This descriptor is generally generated from plugin sources, using maven-plugin-plugin.

<plugin xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/PLUGIN/1.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/PLUGIN/1.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/plugin-1.0.0.xsd">
  <description/>
  <groupId/>
  <artifactId/>
  <version/>
  <goalPrefix/>
  <isolatedRealm/>
  <inheritedByDefault/>

  <mojos>
    <mojo>
      <goal/>
      <description/>
      <implementation/>
      <language/>
      <phase/>
      <executePhase/>
      <executeGoal/>
      <executeLifecycle/>
      <requiresDependencyResolution/>
      <requiresDependencyCollection/>
      <requiresDirectInvocation/>
      <requiresProject/>
      <requiresReports/>
      <requiresOnline/>
      <aggregator/>
      <inheritedByDefault/>
      <threadSafe/>
      <instantiationStrategy/>
      <executionStrategy/>
      <since/>
      <deprecated/>
      <configurator/>
      <composer/>

      <parameters>
        <parameter>
          <name/>
          <alias/>
          <type/>
          <required/>
          <editable/>
          <implementation/>
          <description/>
          <since/>
          <deprecated/>
        </parameter>
      </parameters>
      <configuration>
        <paramName implementation=.. default-value=.. />
      </configuration>

      <requirements>
        <requirement>
          <role/>
          <role-hint/>
          <field-name/>
        </requirement>
      </requirements>
    </mojo>
  </mojos>

  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId/>
      <artifactId/>
      <version/>
      <type/>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>
</plugin>

plugin

Root element of the plugin.xml file.

Element Type Description
description String Description of the plugin.
groupId String The group id of the plugin.
artifactId String The artifact id of the plugin.
version String The version of the plugin.
goalPrefix String
isolatedRealm boolean
Default value is: false.
inheritedByDefault boolean
Default value is: true.
mojos/mojo* List<MojoDescriptor> (Many) Description of each Mojo provided by the plugin.
dependencies/dependency* List<Dependency> (Many) A set of dependencies which the plugin requires in order to function. This enables the plugin to function independently of its POM (or at least to declare the libraries it needs to run).

mojo

A Mojo description.

Element Type Description
goal String The name for the Mojo that users will reference from the command line to execute the Mojo directly, or inside a POM in order to provide Mojo-specific configuration.
description String The description of this Mojo's functionality.
implementation String The Mojo's fully-qualified class name (or script path in the case of non-Java Mojos).
language String The implementation language for this Mojo (Java, beanshell, etc.).
Default value is: java.
phase String Defines a default phase to bind a mojo execution to if the user does not explicitly set a phase in the POM. Note: This annotation will not automagically make a mojo run when the plugin declaration is added to the POM. It merely enables the user to omit the <phase> element from the surrounding <execution> element.
executePhase String
executeGoal String
executeLifecycle String
requiresDependencyResolution String Flags this Mojo as requiring the dependencies in the specified class path to be resolved before it can execute: compile, runtime, test, compile+runtime (since Maven 3.0)
Default value is: runtime.
requiresDependencyCollection String Flags this mojo as requiring information about the dependencies that would make up the specified class path. As the name suggests, this is similar to requiresDependencyResolution and supports the same values. The important difference is this will not resolve the files for the dependencies, i.e. the artifacts associated with a Maven project can lack a file. As such, this annotation is meant for mojos that only want to analyze the set of transitive dependencies, in particular during early lifecycle phases where full dependency resolution might fail due to projects which haven't been built yet.
requiresDirectInvocation boolean Flags this Mojo to be invoked directly.
Default value is: false.
requiresProject boolean Flags this Mojo to run inside of a project.
Default value is: true.
requiresReports boolean Flags this Mojo to require reports. Unsupported since Maven 3.0.
Default value is: false.
requiresOnline boolean Flags this Mojo to require online mode for its operation.
Default value is: false.
aggregator boolean Flags this Mojo to run it in a multi module way, i.e. aggregate the build with the set of projects listed as modules.
Default value is: false.
inheritedByDefault boolean Specify that the Mojo is inherited.
Default value is: true.
threadSafe boolean Marks this mojo as being thread-safe, i.e. the mojo safely supports concurrent execution during parallel builds. Mojos without this annotation will make Maven output a warning when used during a parallel build session. Since Maven 3.0.
Default value is: false.
instantiationStrategy String Specify the instantiation strategy.
Default value is: per-lookup.
executionStrategy String Specify the execution strategy: once-per-session, always.
since String Specify the version when the Mojo was added to the API. Similar to Javadoc since.
deprecated String Specify the version when the Mojo was deprecated to the API. Similar to Javadoc deprecated. This will trigger a warning when a user tries to configure a parameter marked as deprecated.
configurator String The configurator type to use when injecting parameter values into this Mojo. The value is normally deduced from the Mojo's implementation language, but can be specified to allow a custom ComponentConfigurator implementation to be used.
composer String
parameters/parameter* List<Parameter> (Many)
configuration/paramName* List<Configuration> (Many)
requirements/requirement* List<Requirement> (Many)

parameter

A phase mapping definition.

Element Type Description
name String The name of the parameter, to be used in configuring this parameter from the Mojo's declared defaults or from the POM.
alias String Specifies an alias which can be used to configure this parameter from the POM. This is primarily useful to improve user-friendliness, where Mojo field names are not intuitive to the user or are otherwise not conducive to configuration via the POM.
type String The Java type for this parameter. This is used to validate the result of any expressions used to calculate the value which should be injected into the Mojo for this parameter.
required boolean Whether this parameter is required for the Mojo to function. This is used to validate the configuration for a Mojo before it is injected, and before the Mojo is executed from some half-state.
Default value is: false.
editable boolean Specifies that this parameter cannot be configured directly by the user (as in the case of POM-specified configuration). This is useful when you want to force the user to use common POM elements rather than plugin configurations, as in the case where you want to use the artifact's final name as a parameter. In this case, you want the user to modify <build><finalName/></build> rather than specifying a value for finalName directly in the plugin configuration section. It is also useful to ensure that - for example - a List-typed parameter which expects items of type Artifact doesn't get a List full of Strings.
Default value is: true.
implementation String
description String The description of this parameter's use inside the Mojo.
since String Specify the version when the parameter was added to the API. Similar to Javadoc since.
deprecated String Specify the version when the parameter was deprecated to the API. Similar to Javadoc deprecated. This will trigger a warning when a user tries to configure a parameter marked as deprecated.

paramName

A parameter configuration.

Element Content: Parameter expression.

Attribute Type Description
implementation String
default-value String

requirement

Element Type Description
role String
role-hint String
field-name String

dependency

Definition of a dependency, needed by the plugin at runtime.

Element Type Description
groupId String The group id of the dependency.
artifactId String The artifact id of the dependency.
version String The version of the dependency.
type String The type of dependency.
Default value is: jar.