You can create your own custom toolchains with plugins using them.
A full working sample is included in maven-toolchains-plugin ITs, which are part of the plugin source tree:
Following instructions are explanations of key points of the sample.
A toolchain consists in:
To get a configured toolchain, a plugin uses ToolchainManager API to get expected toolchain, then some tool in the toolchain:
@Component private ToolchainManager toolchainManager; @Parameter( defaultValue = "${session}", required = true, readonly = true ) private MavenSession session; public void execute() throws MojoExecutionException { // get the custom toolchain CustomToolchain toolchain = (CustomToolchain) toolchainManager.getToolchainFromBuildContext( "custom", session ); if ( toolchain == null ) { throw new MojoExecutionException( "Could not find 'custom' toolchain: please check maven-toolchains-plugin configuration." ); } getLog().info( "Found 'custom' toolchain in build context." ); // get a tool from the toolchain String path = toolchain.findTool( "tool" ); getLog().info( "Found expected tool named 'tool' at following location: " + path ); }
This code uses Maven Plugin Tool Java 5 Annotations.
The custom toolchain implementation needs to be shared between the toolchain-aware plugin and maven-toolchains-plugin: this is done using Maven extension:
<plugin> <groupId>...</groupId> <artifactId>...</artifactId> <version>...</version> <extensions>true</extensions><!-- to share the custom toolchain with maven-toolchains-plugin --> </plugin>
<project> <build> <extensions> <extension> <groupId>...</groupId> <artifactId>...</artifactId> <version>...</version> </extension> </extensions> </build> </project>
Notice that packaging a toolchain in its own artifact separate from plugin is only useful when there are multiple plugins using the toolchain. As it is expected in general that a custom toolchain will be used by only one plugin (eventually providing multiple goals), it is simpler to package the toolchain with the plugin in only one artifact.