Name: Apache Maven Help Plugin

Description: The Maven Help plugin provides goals aimed at helping to make sense out of the build environment. It includes the ability to view the effective POM and settings files, after inheritance and active profiles have been applied, as well as a describe a particular plugin goal to give usage information.

Plugin coordinates:
Group Id: org.apache.maven.plugins
Artifact Id: maven-help-plugin
Version: 3.2.0

Goal Prefix: help

The goal help:help gives general information about the help plugin and lists its goals:
$ mvn help:help $ mvn help:help -Ddetail=true -Dgoal=help
The goal help:describe gives detailed information about any Maven plugin and lists its goals:
$ mvn help:describe -Dplugin="org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-help-plugin" $ mvn help:describe -Dplugin="org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-help-plugin" -Ddetail=true -Dgoal=help
The help plugin has the following goals:

• help: Displays help information on maven-help-plugin.
  
  
• describe: Displays a list of the attributes for a Maven Plugin and/or goals (aka Mojo - Maven plain Old Java Object).
  
  
• system: Displays a list of the platform details like system properties and environment variables.
  
  
• effective-pom: Displays the effective POM as an XML for this build.
  
  
• effective-settings: Displays the calculated settings as XML for this project.
  
  
• active-profiles: Displays a list of the profiles which are currently active for this build.
  
  
• all-profiles: Displays a list of available profiles under the current project.
  
  
• evaluate: Evaluates Maven expressions given by the user in an interactive mode.
  

The goal describe gives information about a maven plugin and lists its goals.
This goal can be used with any maven plugin including the help plugin itself.

Usage: You must specify either a 'cmd' parameter, or a 'plugin' parameter, or both 'groupId' and 'artifactId' parameters.

Here are some examples of how to use this goal:

• mvn help:describe -Dcmd=<phase-name> $ mvn help:describe -Dcmd=install
  
• mvn help:describe -Dcmd=<plugin-prefix:goal-name> $ mvn help:describe -Dcmd="help:describe"
  
• mvn help:describe -Dplugin=<plugin-prefix> $ mvn help:describe -Dplugin=help
  
• mvn help:describe -Dplugin=<plugin-group-id:plugin-artifact-id> $ mvn help:describe -Dplugin="org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-help-plugin"
  
• mvn help:describe -DgroupId=<plugin-group-id> -DartifactId=<plugin-artifact-id> $ mvn help:describe -DgroupId="org.apache.maven.plugins" -DartifactId="maven-help-plugin"
  
• mvn help:describe -DgroupId=<plugin-group-id> -DartifactId=<plugin-artifact-id> -Dversion=<plugin-version> $ mvn help:describe -DgroupId="org.apache.maven.plugins" -DartifactId="maven-help-plugin" -Dversion="3.2.0"
  

To display the list of parameters for each goal, use the parameter detail:
$ mvn help:describe -Dplugin=help -Ddetail=true
To display the list of parameters for a specific goal, use the parameter goal:
$ mvn help:describe -Dplugin=help -Ddetail=true -Dgoal=describe [INFO] Mojo: 'help:describe' Description: Displays a list of the attributes for a Maven Plugin and/or goals (aka Mojo - Maven plain Old Java Object). Available parameters: cmd User property: cmd A Maven command like a single goal or a single phase following the Maven command line: mvn [options] [<goal(s)>] [<phase(s)>] plugin Alias: prefix User property: plugin The Maven Plugin to describe. This must be specified in one of three ways: 1. plugin-prefix, i.e. 'help' 2. groupId:artifactId, i.e. 'org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-help-plugin' 3. groupId:artifactId:version, i.e. 'org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-help-plugin:2.0' groupId User property: groupId The Maven Plugin groupId to describe. Note: Should be used with artifactId parameter. artifactId User property: artifactId The Maven Plugin artifactId to describe. Note: Should be used with groupId parameter. detail (Default: false) User property: detail This flag specifies that a detailed (verbose) list of goal (Mojo) information should be given. goal User property: goal The goal name of a Mojo to describe within the specified Maven Plugin. If this parameter is specified, only the corresponding goal (Mojo) will be described, rather than the whole Plugin. minimal (Default: false) User property: minimal This flag specifies that a minimal list of goal (Mojo) information should be given. output User property: output Optional parameter to write the output of this help in a given file, instead of writing to the console. Note: Could be a relative path. version User property: version The Maven Plugin version to describe. Note: Should be used with groupId/artifactId parameters.