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 Introduction
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 Maria Odea Ching
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 2008-01-01
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~~ Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
~~ or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
~~ distributed with this work for additional information
~~ regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
~~ to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
~~ "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
~~ with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
~~
~~   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
~~
~~ Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
~~ software distributed under the License is distributed on an
~~ "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
~~ KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
~~ specific language governing permissions and limitations
~~ under the License.

~~ NOTE: For help with the syntax of this file, see:
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Maven Plugin Plugin

 The Maven Plugin Plugin is used to create a {{{/ref/current/maven-plugin-api/plugin.html}Maven plugin descriptor}} for any
 {{{/general.html#What_is_a_Mojo}Mojo}}'s found in the source tree, to include in the JAR.
 It is also used to generate report files for the Mojos as well as the artifact metadata and generating a generic help goal.

* Goals Overview

   The Plugin Plugin has four goals:

   * {{{./descriptor-mojo.html}plugin:descriptor}} generates a plugin descriptor,

   * {{{./addPluginArtifactMetadata-mojo.html}plugin:addPluginArtifactMetadata}} injects any plugin-specific artifact
      metadata to the project's artifact, for subsequent installation and deployment,

   * {{{./helpmojo-mojo.html}plugin:helpmojo}} generates a help mojo which describes all mojos in a plugin,

   * {{{./help-mojo.html}plugin:help}} display help information on maven-plugin-plugin.

   []

* Usage

  General instructions on how to use the Plugin Plugin can be found on the {{{./usage.html}usage page}}. Some more
  specific use cases are described in the examples given below. Last but not least, users occasionally contribute
  additional examples, tips or errata to the
  {{{https://maven.apache.org/plugin-developers/index.html}Plugin Developers Centre page}}.

  In case you still have questions regarding the plugin's usage feel free to contact the {{{./mailing-lists.html}user mailing list}}.
  The posts to the mailing list are archived and could already contain the answer to your question as part of an older thread.
  Hence, it is also worth browsing/searching the {{{./mailing-lists.html}mail archive}}.

  If you feel like the plugin is missing a feature or has a defect, you can fill a feature request or bug report in our
  {{{./issue-management.html}issue tracker}}. When creating a new issue, please provide a comprehensive description of your
  concern. Especially for fixing bugs it is crucial that the developers can reproduce your problem. For this reason,
  entire debug logs, POMs or most preferably little demo projects attached to the issue are very much appreciated.
  Of course, patches are welcome, too. Contributors can check out the project from our
  {{{./scm.html}source repository}} and will find supplementary information in the
  {{{/guides/development/guide-helping.html}guide to helping with Maven}}.

* Examples

   The following examples shows how to use the Plugin Plugin in more advanced usecases:

   * {{{./examples/using-annotations.html}Using Plugin Tools Java5 annotations for your Mojo}}

   * {{{./examples/generate-descriptor.html}Configuring Generation of Plugin Descriptor}}

   * {{{./examples/generate-help.html}Configuring Generation of Help Mojo}}

   []
