Skipping Tests

To skip running the tests for a particular project, set the skipTests property to true.

<project>
  [...]
  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>3.5.3</version>
        <configuration>
          <skipTests>true</skipTests>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>
  [...]
</project>

You can also skip the tests via the command line by executing the following command:

mvn install -DskipTests

If you absolutely must, you can also use the maven.test.skip property to skip compiling the tests. maven.test.skip is honored by Surefire, Failsafe and the Compiler Plugin.

mvn install -Dmaven.test.skip=true

Skipping by Default

If you want to skip tests by default but want the ability to re-enable tests from the command line, you need to go via a properties section in the pom:

<project>
  [...]
  <properties>
    <skipTests>true</skipTests>
  </properties>
  [...]
  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>3.5.3</version>
        <configuration>
          <skipTests>${skipTests}</skipTests>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>
  [...]
</project>

This will allow you to run with all tests disabled by default and to run them with this command:

mvn install -DskipTests=false

The same can be done with the skip parameter and other boolean properties of the plugin.