How to keep Maven profiles which are activeByDefault active even if another profile gets activated?

Question

I have a profile in my pom.xml which should be always active unless it is explicitely deactivated (-P !firstProfile). I solved this by using the activeByDefault flag:

<

Answer 1

One trick is to avoid activeByDefault, and instead activate the profile by the absence of a property, eg:

  
    firstProfile
    
      
        !skipFirstProfile
      
    
    ...
  

You should then be able to deactivate the profile with -DskipFirstProfile or with -P !firstProfile, but otherwise the profile will be active.

See: Maven: The Complete Reference, Profile Activation - Activation by the Absence of a Property