Basic maven plugin project not working, Mojo plugin descriptors not generating

Java Problem Overview

I am following the tutorial for creating a maven plugin and cannot run mvn install without getting errors. The info complains that i don't have the required mojo descriptors when the annotations should be generating them for me. I am running maven 3.0.5 and using intellij as my ide. here is my Main class:

@Mojo(name = "modify-connector")
public class ComplianceMojo extends AbstractMojo {

	@Parameter
	private String artifactId;

	@Parameter
	private String version;

	@Override
	public void execute() throws MojoExecutionException, MojoFailureException {
		File jar = new File(getPluginContext().get("project.build.directory") + "/"
				+ getPluginContext().get("project.build.finalname") + "/" + artifactId + "-" + version);
		if(jar.exists()){
			getLog().info("The file exists! " + jar.getAbsolutePath());
		} else {
			getLog().info("The file does not exist: " + jar.getAbsolutePath());
		}
	}
}

And here is my pom.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
		 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
		 xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
	<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

	<groupId>mysql-jdbc-compliance-maven-plugin</groupId>
	<artifactId>mysql-jdbc-compliance-maven-plugin</artifactId>
	<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
	<packaging>maven-plugin</packaging>

	<dependencies>
		<dependency>
			<groupId>org.apache.maven</groupId>
			<artifactId>maven-plugin-api</artifactId>
			<version>2.0</version>
		</dependency>
		<dependency>
			<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugin-tools</groupId>
			<artifactId>maven-plugin-annotations</artifactId>
			<version>3.2</version>
			<scope>provided</scope>
		</dependency>
	</dependencies>

</project>

Note: I had to separately add the annotations dependency as the main plugin api did not contain these classes. when i run mvn install on my project, the output is as follows:

[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD FAILURE
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 0.867s
[INFO] Finished at: Wed Sep 25 17:45:55 EST 2013
[INFO] Final Memory: 8M/244M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-plugin-plugin:2.9:descriptor (default-descriptor) on project mysql-jdbc-compliance-maven-plugin: Error extracting plugin descriptor: 'No mojo definitions were found for plugin: mysql-jdbc-compliance-maven-plugin:mysql-jdbc-compliance-maven-plugin.' -> [Help 1]
[ERROR] 
[ERROR] To see the full stack trace of the errors, re-run Maven with the -e switch.
[ERROR] Re-run Maven using the -X switch to enable full debug logging.
[ERROR] 
[ERROR] For more information about the errors and possible solutions, please read the following articles:
[ERROR] [Help 1] http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAVEN/MojoExecutionException

Java Solutions

Solution 1 - Java

Maybe this is related to a unresolved issue in Maven: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/MNG-5346

For my plugin projects, i could workaround by adding an explicit execution of the maven-plugin-plugin:

<build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-plugin-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>3.2</version>
                <configuration>
                    <!-- see http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/MNG-5346 -->
                    <skipErrorNoDescriptorsFound>true</skipErrorNoDescriptorsFound>
                </configuration>
                
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <id>mojo-descriptor</id>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>descriptor</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

But see the comments in the JIRA issue for more elaborate solutions!

Solution 2 - Java

after reading the Jira Issue that Gyro posted, i added the following lines to my pom and everything compiled nicely.

<build>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-plugin-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>3.2</version>
            <configuration>
                <goalPrefix>mysql-jdbc-compliance</goalPrefix>
            </configuration>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <id>default-descriptor</id>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>descriptor</goal>
                    </goals>
                    <phase>process-classes</phase>
                </execution>
                <execution>
                    <id>help-descriptor</id>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>helpmojo</goal>
                    </goals>
                    <phase>process-classes</phase>
                </execution>
            </executions>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>

Solution 3 - Java

As mentioned in the previous answer, this was a bug and it is now fixed.

You just need to tell maven it should use a newer version of the maven-plugin-plugin.

Here is what my pom file looks like:

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
  <!-- ...other maven config... -->
  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-plugin-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>3.3</version>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>
</project>

Solution 4 - Java

Simply incrementing maven plugin version to 3.3 or 3.4 won't fix any issue (as some has stated).

You have to add a minimum of default-descriptor execution with the correct phase. So the minimum config of build information is as follows:

<build>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-plugin-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>3.1</version>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <id>default-descriptor</id>
                    <phase>process-classes</phase>
                </execution>
            </executions>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>

irrespective of maven-plugin-plugin version. (it can be 3.1, 3.2, 3.3. 3.4 (didn't test the others)).

will yield:

...
[INFO] --- maven-plugin-plugin:3.2:descriptor (default-descriptor) @ example-maven-plugin ---
[WARNING] Using platform encoding (UTF-8 actually) to read mojo metadata, i.e. build is platform dependent!
[INFO] Applying mojo extractor for language: java-annotations
[INFO] Mojo extractor for language: java-annotations found 1 mojo descriptors.
[INFO] Applying mojo extractor for language: java
[INFO] Mojo extractor for language: java found 0 mojo descriptors.
[INFO] Applying mojo extractor for language: bsh
[INFO] Mojo extractor for language: bsh found 0 mojo descriptors.
...
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another option if you don't want to have build tags in your pom, you can use javadocs on your Mojo. For instance:

/**
 * @goal run123
 */
@Mojo(name = "run123")
public class MyMojo extends AbstractMojo {
}

will yield:

...
[INFO] --- maven-plugin-plugin:3.2:descriptor (default-descriptor) @ example-maven-plugin ---
[WARNING] Using platform encoding (UTF-8 actually) to read mojo metadata, i.e. build is platform dependent!
[INFO] Applying mojo extractor for language: java-annotations
[INFO] Mojo extractor for language: java-annotations found 0 mojo descriptors.
[INFO] Applying mojo extractor for language: java
[INFO] Mojo extractor for language: java found 1 mojo descriptors.
[INFO] Applying mojo extractor for language: bsh
[INFO] Mojo extractor for language: bsh found 0 mojo descriptors. 
...
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please refer to this guide for more info http://maven.apache.org/plugin-tools/maven-plugin-plugin/examples/using-annotations.html

Solution 5 - Java

Great answers above -- I'd like to augment them by adding a resource to find the latest version: https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.apache.maven.plugins/maven-plugin-plugin

April 2, 2019 -- I encountered the same error above and resolved it by using 3.6.0

Solution 6 - Java

Initially I thought Gyro's answer fixed the error. But later when executing the goal it failed.

> mvn sample.plugin:hello-maven-plugin:1.0-SNAPSHOT:sayhi

produced

> [ERROR] Could not find goal 'sayhi' in plugin sample.plugin:hello-maven-plugin:1.0-SNAPSHOT among available goals -> [Help 1]

Turns out that

> skipErrorNoDescriptorsFound

only suppressed the error. i.e. It did not resolve the underlying problem. I removed this fix.

After that the solution was simple (and the cause purely my fault). When I created GreetingMojo.java I placed it in the following directory

> .../Development/my-maven-plugin/src/sample/plugin/GreetingMojo.java

It needed to be under

> .../Development/my-maven-plugin/src/main/Java/sample/plugin/GreetingMojo.java

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	coderatchet	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Java	Gyro Gearless	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Java	coderatchet	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Java	Jmini	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Java	randomUser56789	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - Java	solbs	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - Java	Shane Gannon	View Answer on Stackoverflow