Building a fat jar using maven

Question

I have a code base which I want to distribute as jar. It also have dependency on external jars, which I want to bundle in the final jar.

I heard that this can be do

Answer 1

Note: If you are a spring-boot application, read the end of answer

Add following plugin to your pom.xml The latest version can be found at

...

    
        
            org.apache.maven.plugins
            maven-assembly-plugin
            CHOOSE LATEST VERSION HERE
            
                
                    jar-with-dependencies
                
            
            
                
                    assemble-all
                    package
                    
                        single
                    
                
            
        
    

...

After configuring this plug-in, running mvn package will produce two jars: one containing just the project classes, and a second fat jar with all dependencies with the suffix "-jar-with-dependencies".

if you want correct classpath setup at runtime then also add following plugin

    org.apache.maven.plugins
    maven-jar-plugin
    
        
            
                true
                fully.qualified.MainClass
            
        
    

---

For spring boot application use just following plugin (choose appropriate version of it)

    org.springframework.boot
    spring-boot-maven-plugin
    
        true
        ${start-class}
    
    
        
            
                repackage