Maven Best Practices

Improve Maven POM configuration using industry-standard best practices.

What is covered in this Skill?

• Dependency management via

  <dependencyManagement>

  and BOMs
• Standard directory layout (

  src/main/java

  ,

  src/test/java

  )
• Centralized plugin management
• Build profiles for environment-specific settings
• Readable POM structure with version properties
• Explicit repository declaration
• Version centralization
• Multi-module project structure with proper inheritance
• Cross-module version consistency
• Multi-module scope: After reading the root

  pom.xml

  , check for a

  <modules>

  section. If present, read every child module's

  pom.xml

  before making any recommendations.
• Check each child for hardcoded versions that duplicate parent

  <dependencyManagement>

  , redundant

  <pluginManagement>

  blocks, properties that should be centralized, and version drift across sibling modules.

Constraints

Before applying Maven best practices recommendations, ensure the project is in a valid state by running Maven validation. This helps identify any existing configuration issues that need to be resolved first. For multi-module projects, scope analysis must cover every child module POM — not just the root.

• MANDATORY: Run

  ./mvnw validate

  or

  mvn validate

  before applying any Maven best practices recommendations
• VERIFY: Ensure all validation errors are resolved before proceeding with POM modifications
• SAFETY: If validation fails, do not continue and ask the user to fix the issues before continuing
• MULTI-MODULE DISCOVERY: After reading the root

  pom.xml

  , check whether it contains a

  <modules>

  section. If it does, read every child module's

  pom.xml

  before making any recommendations — analysis scope is the full module tree, not only the root
• CROSS-MODULE SCOPE: When child modules exist, check each one for: hardcoded dependency versions that duplicate

  <dependencyManagement>

  in the parent, plugin configurations that duplicate

  <pluginManagement>

  , properties that should be centralized in the parent, and version drift (same artifact declared at different versions across sibling modules)
• BEFORE APPLYING: Read the reference for detailed examples, good/bad patterns, and constraints

When to use this skill

• Review pom.xml to improve it
• Apply Maven best practices to pom.xml
• Improve Maven POM configuration

Reference

For detailed guidance, examples, and constraints, see references/110-java-maven-best-practices.md.