Including dependencies in a jar with Maven

You can do this using the maven-assembly plugin with the "jar-with-dependencies" descriptor. Here's the relevant chunk from one of our pom.xml's that does this:

  <build>
    <plugins>
      <!-- any other plugins -->
      <plugin>
        <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
        <executions>
          <execution>
            <phase>package</phase>
            <goals>
              <goal>single</goal>
            </goals>
          </execution>
        </executions>
        <configuration>
          <descriptorRefs>
            <descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>
          </descriptorRefs>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>

With Maven 2, the right way to do this is to use the Maven2 Assembly Plugin which has a pre-defined descriptor file for this purpose and that you could just use on the command line:

mvn assembly:assembly -DdescriptorId=jar-with-dependencies

If you want to make this jar executable, just add the main class to be run to the plugin configuration:

<plugin>
  <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
  <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
  <configuration>
    <archive>
      <manifest>
        <mainClass>my.package.to.my.MainClass</mainClass>
      </manifest>
    </archive>
  </configuration>
</plugin>

If you want to create that assembly as part of the normal build process, you should bind the single or directory-single goal (the assembly goal should ONLY be run from the command line) to a lifecycle phase (package makes sense), something like this:

<plugin>
  <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
  <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
  <executions>
    <execution>
      <id>create-my-bundle</id>
      <phase>package</phase>
      <goals>
        <goal>single</goal>
      </goals>
      <configuration>
        <descriptorRefs>
          <descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>
        </descriptorRefs>
        ...
      </configuration>
    </execution>
  </executions>
</plugin>

Adapt the configuration element to suit your needs (for example with the manifest stuff as spoken).

If you want to do an executable jar file, them need set the main class too. So the full configuration should be.

    <plugins>
            <plugin>
                 <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
                 <executions>
                     <execution>
                          <phase>package</phase>
                          <goals>
                              <goal>single</goal>
                          </goals>
                      </execution>
                  </executions>
                  <configuration>
                       <!-- ... -->
                       <archive>
                           <manifest>
                                 <mainClass>fully.qualified.MainClass</mainClass>
                           </manifest>
                       </archive>
                       <descriptorRefs>
                           <descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>
                      </descriptorRefs>
                 </configuration>
         </plugin>
   </plugins>