“Unknown packaging: eclipse-plugin” in Maven

Question

I want to build a project in Maven using eclipse-plugin packaging, but I get the following error for my POM:

[ERROR] Unknown packaging: eclipse-         


        

Answer 1

The packaging type eclipse-plugin is defined by a Maven build extension called Tycho. In order to use Tycho's packaging types, you need to configure Tycho as a build extension:

<build>
  <plugins>
    <plugin>
      <groupId>org.eclipse.tycho</groupId>
      <artifactId>tycho-maven-plugin</artifactId>
      <version>${tycho-version}</version>
      <extensions>true</extensions>
    </plugin>
  </plugins>
</build>

Also, Tycho requires additional metadata files to be present, e.g. an OSGi manifest for eclipse-plugin modules. Another major difference of a Tycho project compared to a regular Maven project is that you have to configure the so-called target platform, e.g. by defining a repository with layout=p2, in case your project references any external artifacts. To get started, you may have a look at this example project.

For more information, you can also check out Tycho's documentation wiki, e.g. the reference card page.