What is pluginManagement in Maven s pom xml

Question

This is a snippet of my pom file                 lt plugins gt               lt plugin gt                   lt groupId gt org apache maven plugins lt  groupId gt                   lt artifactId gt maven-dependency-plugin lt  artifactId gt                   lt version gt 2 4 lt  version gt                                           lt executions gt                       lt execution gt                           lt phase gt install lt  phase gt                           lt goals gt                               lt goal gt copy-dependencies lt  goal gt                           lt  goals gt                           lt configuration gt                                                              lt  configuration gt                       lt  execution gt                   lt  executions gt               lt  plugin gt           lt  plugins gt        I use it successfully with the command   mvn install   But  when I try to enclose it into the  pluginManagement  tag  the maven-dependency-plugin stops working when I launch the install goal  Why does the  pluginManagement  tag change the build behavior  Or should I use another goal or option

User · Accepted Answer

You still need to add    lt plugins gt       lt plugin gt           lt groupId gt org apache maven plugins lt  groupId gt           lt artifactId gt maven-dependency-plugin lt  artifactId gt       lt  plugin gt   lt  plugins gt    in your build  because pluginManagement is only a way to share the same plugin configuration across all your project modules   From Maven documentation      pluginManagement  is an element that is seen along side plugins  Plugin Management contains plugin elements in much the same way  except that rather than configuring plugin information for this particular project build  it is intended to configure project builds that inherit from this one  However  this only configures plugins that are actually referenced within the plugins element in the children  The children have every right to override pluginManagement definitions

User · Answer

So if i understood well  i would say that  lt pluginManagement gt  just like  lt dependencyManagement gt  are both used to share only the configuration between a parent and it s sub-modules  For that we define the dependencie s and plugin s common configurations in the parent project and then we only have to declare the dependency plugin in the sub-modules to use it  without having to define a configuration for it  i e version or execution  goals  etc   Though this does not prevent us from overriding the configuration in the submodule  In contrast  lt dependencies gt  and  lt plugins gt  are inherited along with their configurations and should not be redeclared in the sub-modules  otherwise a conflict would occur  is that right

User · Answer

The difference between  lt pluginManagement  gt  and  lt plugins  gt  is that a  lt plugin  gt  under    lt pluginManagement  gt  defines the settings for plugins that will be inherited by modules in your build  This is great for cases where you have a parent pom file    lt plugins  gt  is a section for the actual invocation of the plugins  It may or may not be inherited from a  lt pluginManagement  gt     You don t need to have a  lt pluginManagement  gt  in your project  if it s not a parent POM  However  if it s a parent pom  then in the child s pom  you need to have a declaration like   lt plugins gt       lt plugin gt           lt groupId gt com foo lt  groupId gt           lt artifactId gt bar-plugin lt  artifactId gt       lt  plugin gt   lt  plugins gt   Notice how you aren t defining any configuration  You can inherit it from the parent  unless you need to further adjust your invocation as per the child project s needs  For more specific information  you can check   The Maven pom xml reference  Plugins  The Maven pom xml reference  Plugin Management

User · Answer

You use pluginManagement in a parent pom to configure it in case any child pom wants to use it  but not every child plugin wants to use it  An example can be that your super pom defines some options for the maven Javadoc plugin    Not each child pom might want to use Javadoc  so you define those defaults in a pluginManagement section  The child pom that wants to use the Javadoc plugin  just defines a plugin section and will inherit the configuration from the pluginManagement definition in the parent pom

User · Answer

pluginManagement  is an element that is seen along side plugins  Plugin Management contains plugin elements in much the same way  except that rather than configuring plugin information for this particular project build  it is intended to configure project builds that inherit from this one  However  this only configures plugins that are actually referenced within the plugins element in the children  The children have every right to override pluginManagement definitions    From http   maven apache org pom html Plugin 5FManagement  Copied from    Maven2 - problem with pluginManagement and parent-child relationship

[java] What is pluginManagement in Maven's pom.xml?

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