Archetype selection

First, the Archetype Plugin asks the user to select an archetype from a list of known archetypes. Archetypes are found in archetype catalogs.

Archetype configuration

Then the Archetype Plugin asks the user to provide values for each of the four main required properties, which are the project's groupId, artifactId, version and package.

It also asks for values for the additional required properties defined in the archetype's metadata file.

Project generation

Finally, the Archetype Plugin generates the Maven project from the selected/configured archetype.

The archetype used to generate the project can be single or multi-module.

The archetype used to generate the project can be partial, which means it enhances an existing project instead of creating a new one.

If the Archetype Plugin is called from an existing project, using a complete (not partial) archetype, then it generates a sub module in the existing project.

If the Archetype Plugin is configured to create a project in an existing directory, it first checks for the existence of a pom.xml file before failing the generation.

Batch mode

It is possible to call the Archetype Plugin to generate a project in batch mode (to get rid of the prompting). This is achieved by providing the Archetype Plugin with all the needed values as system properties.

• archetypeCatalog which specifies the catalog(s). The valid catalogs are: internal (the default), local, remote, file://path, http://url.
  • internal uses an internal catalog
  • local uses the ~/.m2/archetype-catalog.xml file
  • remote uses the http://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2/archetype-catalog.xml file
  • file://path uses the catalog file defined by path (or the archetype-catalog.xml file located in path directory)
  • http://url uses the catalog file defined by url (or the archetype-catalog.xml file located in URL directory)
• archetypeGroupId specifies the groupId of the archetype to use
• archetypeArtifactId specifies the artifactId of the archetype to use
• archetypeVersion specifies the version of the archetype to use
• archetypeRepository specifies the repository in which the archetype resides
• groupId specifies the groupId of the generated project
• artifactId specifies the artifactId of the generated project
• version specifies the version of the generated project
• package specifies the package for the sources of the generated project
• anotherVelocityProperty specifies any other required property

Behind a Proxy

Being behind a proxy is automatically configured by Maven.