Invalid packaging error when using Spring Boot's starter web parent

Question

I'd like to use the spring-boot-starter-web parent for my project. Unfortunately if I try to use it I get the following error message:

[ERROR] [ERROR] Some problems were encountered while processing the POMs:
[ERROR] Invalid packaging for parent POM org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-web:2.0.5.RELEASE, must be "pom" but is "jar" @ org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-web:2.0.5.RELEASE
 @ 
[ERROR] The build could not read 1 project -> [Help 1]
[ERROR]   
[ERROR]   The project com.company:my-artifact:1.0-SNAPSHOT (/home/user/Projects/my-artifact/pom.xml) has 1 error
[ERROR]     Invalid packaging for parent POM org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-web:2.0.5.RELEASE, must be "pom" but is "jar" @ org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-web:2.0.5.RELEASE

If I change the parent to be spring-boot-starter-parent this error does not happen and the build completes without error.

This is a MWE of my pom.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <groupId>com.company</groupId>
    <artifactId>my-artifact</artifactId>
    <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>jar</packaging>
    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        <version>2.0.5.RELEASE</version>
        <relativePath/>
    </parent>
    <properties>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
        <kotlin.version>1.2.71</kotlin.version>
        <maven.compiler.source>1.8</maven.compiler.source>
        <maven.compiler.target>1.8</maven.compiler.target>
    </properties>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.jetbrains.kotlin</groupId>
            <artifactId>kotlin-stdlib-jdk8</artifactId>
            <version>${kotlin.version}</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
    <build>
        <sourceDirectory>src/main/kotlin</sourceDirectory>
        <testSourceDirectory>src/test/kotlin</testSourceDirectory>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.jetbrains.kotlin</groupId>
                <artifactId>kotlin-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>${kotlin.version}</version>
                <configuration>
                    <jvmTarget>1.8</jvmTarget>
                </configuration>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <id>compile</id>
                        <phase>compile</phase>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>compile</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

</project>

The project is a Kotlin project created with IntelliJ by creating a new Maven project from archetype and choosing the kotlin for JVM archetype so the only files I have are pom.xml and the src/main/kotlin/com/company/Hello.kt with the following contents:

package com.company

fun main(args: Array<String>) {
    println("Hello, World")
}

And the test file under src/test/kotlin/com/company/HelloTest.kt:

package com.copmany

import org.junit.Test
import kotlin.test.assertEquals

class HelloTest {

}

As far as I can tell my POM is correct. I tried to mvn clean build multiple times but it does not seem to be a problem with the downloaded dependencies. Isn't the spring-boot-starter-web supposed to be used as a parent?

Answer 1

You have to set spring-boot-starter-parent as parent

<parent>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
    <version>2.0.5.RELEASE</version>
</parent>

and spring-boot-starter-web as your dependency

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.jetbrains.kotlin</groupId>
        <artifactId>kotlin-stdlib-jdk8</artifactId>
        <version>${kotlin.version}</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>