The purpose of the dependency:purge-local-repository goal is to purge (delete and optionally re-resolve) artifacts from the local maven repository. This page describes some of the configuration options available to the plugin.
The default behaviour of the plugin is to first resolve the entire dependency tree, then delete the contents from the local repository, and then re-resolve the dependencies from the remote repository.
mvn dependency:purge-local-repository
By default, the plugin operates on all transitive dependencies. This means that the plugin may download certain missing dependencies to gather the full dependency tree information before beginning the purge process.
To avoid this pre-download step, the plugin can be configured to operate only on the direct dependencies of the project using the "actTranstively" parameter.
mvn dependency:purge-local-repository -DactTransitively=false
Specific dependencies from the current project dependency tree can be included or excluded from the purging and re-resolution process using the "includes" or "excludes" parameters. By default, all project dependencies are purged. The "includes" option changes this behaviour to only purge the included artifacts. The "excludes" option can be used to prevent purging/refreshing of certain dependencies.
<project>
[...]
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.7</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>purge-local-dependencies</id>
<phase>process-sources</phase>
<goals>
<goal>purge-local-repository</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<excludes>
<exclude>[groupId1]:[artifactId1]</exclude>
<exclude>[groupId2]:[artifactId2]</exclude>
</excludes>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
[...]
</project>The includes/excludes configuration can also be passed from the CLI using the "include" or "exclude" parameter.
mvn dependency:purge-local-repository -Dinclude=org.slf4j:slf4j-api,org.slf4j:log4j-over-slf4j
mvn dependency:purge-local-repository -Dinclude=org.slf4j -DresolutionFuzziness=groupId -Dverbose=true
Specific dependencies which are not part of the current project dependency tree can be purged by using the manual-purge-local-repository goal and setting the "manualIncludes" or "manualInclude" parameters. Any manually included purge artifacts will be removed from the local repository and will not be re-resolved until they are needed. This can be useful for example to refresh the parent pom, an imported pom, or a maven plugin.
Warning, using this goal during the normal build process can be risky if dependencies are removed from the local repo, but are needed later in the build. This goal is normally safe at the end of the build, or as part of the build clean process.
WARNING, using this goal during a build can cause build failures if dependencies are removed from the local repo, but are needed at a later point in the build. It is recommended that this goal only be used outside of a build or during the clean process.
mvn dependency:manual-purge-local-repository -Dinclude=org.apache:apache
To purge all the dependencies of a given groupId, use the resolutionFuzziness configuration parameter.
If neither includes nor excludes are specified, all the dependencies of the current project are purged.
You can see the complete mojo documentation in dependency:purge-local-repository.