[maven-2] I want to execute shell commands from Maven's pom.xml

2 Options:

1. You want to exec a command from maven without binding to any phase, you just type the command and maven runs it, you just want to maven to run something, you don't care if we are in compile/package/... Let's say I want to run npm start with maven, you can achieve it with the below:

mvn exec:exec -Pstart-node

For that you need the below maven section

  <profiles>
    <profile>
      <id>start-node</id>
      <build>
        <plugins>
          <plugin>
            <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
            <artifactId>exec-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>1.3.2</version>
            <executions>
              <execution>
                <goals>
                  <goal>exec</goal>
                </goals>
              </execution>
            </executions>
            <configuration>
              <executable>npm</executable>
              <arguments><argument>start</argument></arguments>
            </configuration>
          </plugin>
        </plugins>
      </build>
    </profile>

  </profiles>

2. You want to run an arbitrary command from maven while you are at a specific phase, for example when I'm at install phase I want to run npm install you can do that with:

mvn install

And for that to work you would need the below section:

  <plugin>
    <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
    <artifactId>exec-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>1.3.2</version>
    <executions>

      <execution>
        <id>npm install (initialize)</id>
        <goals>
          <goal>exec</goal>
        </goals>
        <phase>initialize</phase>
        <configuration>
          <executable>npm</executable>
          <arguments>
            <argument>install</argument>
          </arguments>
        </configuration>
      </execution>