Apache Maven Invoker Plugin
The Invoker Plugin is used to run a set of Maven projects. The plugin can determine whether each project execution is successful, and optionally can verify the output generated from a given project execution.
This plugin is in particular handy to perform integration tests for other Maven plugins. The Invoker Plugin can be employed to run a set of test projects that have been designed to assert certain features of the plugin under test.
Upcoming Incompatibility Notice
With a future (minor) the report output filename will change for alignment with other reporting plugins from org.apache.maven.plugins. To make you aware of that, see the following table for the upcoming changes:
| Mojo Class Name | Output name | New Output Name |
|---|---|---|
InvokerReport |
invoker-report |
invoker |
Details about this change can be found in MINVOKER-346.
Goals Overview
The plugin has four goals meant to participate in the default build lifecycle:
- invoker:install copies the project artifacts and dependencies of the main build into a dedicated local repository to prepare the execution of the selected sub projects in an isolated environment.
- invoker:integration-test runs a set of Maven projects in a directory.
- invoker:verify verifies the result of
invoker:integration-test. - invoker:run runs a set of Maven projects in a directory and verifies the result. This is equivalent to running both
invoker:integration-testandinvoker:verify.
This last goal is intended for usage with the site lifecycle:
- invoker:report integrates the results from previous builds into the site.
Usage
General instructions on how to use the Invoker Plugin can be found on the usage page. Some more specific use cases are described in the examples given below.
In case you still have questions regarding the plugin's usage, please have a look at the FAQ and feel free to contact the user mailing list. The posts to the mailing list are archived and could already contain the answer to your question as part of an older thread. Hence, it is also worth browsing/searching the mail archive.
If you feel like the plugin is missing a feature or has a defect, you can fill a feature request or bug report in our issue tracker. When creating a new issue, please provide a comprehensive description of your concern. Especially for fixing bugs it is crucial that the developers can reproduce your problem. For this reason, entire debug logs, POMs or most preferably little demo projects attached to the issue are very much appreciated. Of course, patches are welcome, too. Contributors can check out the project from our source repository and will find supplementary information in the guide to helping with Maven.
Examples
The following example configurations are available to illustrate selected use cases in more detail:
- Clone projects to a temporary directory before running.
- Filter files to introduce some updates before starting the build.
- Install projects artifacts to a local repository before running.
- Run a BeanShell or Groovy script to verify project output.
- Fast Invoker Plugin configuration to accelerate project execution.
- Access test classes to share code between hook scripts.
- Use Invoker Properties to configure goals, profiles etc. for individual projects.
- Use Selector Conditions to skip projects based on JRE version or OS family.
- Parallel projects execution to speed up project execution.
- Prepare the Build Environment by building some setup projects before other projects.
- Using with other integration test frameworks by decoupling checking the results of the integration tests from executing the integration tests.
You can also study some real-life usages of the Invoker Plugin by browsing its own integration tests which are located in the directory src/it of the project source tree.