How to reuse plugin configuration without inheriting from parent pom

Question

We have a multi module project with a root pom.

    Root
    |->a
    |->b
    |->c
    |->d

The parent pom for a,b,c and d is "X" which isn't owned by us, so I can't do any modifications here.

Also I can't change my parent as all my child projects are dependent on "X".

The problem that I face is I'm duplicating the same plugin configuration in all the submodules as I can't add the configuration to the centralized parent and inherit the same.

Can anyone suggest me how to reuse the plugin configurations in all child modules instead of duplicating it?

Answer 1

If the required plugin configurations are in X, then you should do nothing, because plugins are inherited.

If X doesn't have the required plugin configurations, you can create a pom that will be a common root of your A,B,C,D modules:

The hierarchy will be:

X
|__ MY_CUSTOM_ROOT
    |__ A
    |__ B
    |__ C
    |__ D 

This MY_CUSTOM_ROOT will contain the plugin definitions that will be inherited automatically A,B,C,D

If you want to make sure what exactly gets inherited, use mvn help:effective-pom