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WAR Manifest Customization

The manifest can be customized by configuring the WAR Plugin's archiver. For full information on the different configuration options available check the documentation for Maven Archiver.

Generating a manifest classpath

Generating a manifest classpath for a WAR is similar to for a JAR, but there are a couple of slight differences since you normally don't want a JAR in both the manifest classpath and the WEB-INF/lib directory. Customize the WAR Plugin's archiver:

<project>
  ...
  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>3.2.2</version>
        <configuration>
          <archive>
            <manifest>
              <addClasspath>true</addClasspath>
            </manifest>
          </archive>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
      ...
    </plugins>
  </build>
  ...
</project>

Now, you can control which dependencies are included in WEB-INF/lib and in the manifest classpath by following these examples. Maven will follow the transitive dependency tree until it gets to artifacts scoped as "provided".

Note: No way is shown how to include a dependency in WEB-INF/lib but not in the manifest classpath.

<project>
  ...
  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.foo</groupId>
      <artifactId>bar-jar1</artifactId>
      <version>${pom.version}</version>
      <optional>true</optional>
      <!-- goes in manifest classpath, but not included in WEB-INF/lib -->
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.foo</groupId>
      <artifactId>bar-jar2</artifactId>
      <version>${pom.version}</version>
      <!-- goes in manifest classpath, AND included in WEB-INF/lib -->
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.foo</groupId>
      <artifactId>bar-jar3</artifactId>
      <version>${pom.version}</version>
      <scope>provided</scope>
      <!-- excluded from manifest classpath, and excluded from WEB-INF/lib -->
    </dependency>
    ...
  </dependencies>
  ...
</project>

Check the Guide to Working with Manifests for more examples.