How to use an archetype? The simple way : mvn archetype:create standard call and standard output/prompt and standard generated tree Configuring the plugin for selection -Darchetype.catalog This property is used to define the catalogs to search archetypes into. This property hold a comma separated list of catalogs. The valid catalogs are: internal (the default), local, remote, file://path, http://url. - internal uses an internal catalog - local uses the ~/.m2/archetype-catalog.xml file - remote uses the http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/arccchetype-catalog.xml file - file://path uses the catalog file defined by path (or the archetype-catalog.xml file located in path directory) - http://url uses the catalog file defined by url (or the archetype-catalog.xml file located in url web directory) -DarchetypeGroupId -DarchetypeArtifactId -DarchetypeVersion -DarchetypeRepository When these 4 properties are defined, no catalog is searched. When only archetypeRepository is missing, the first archetype sharing both group and artifact ids found in any catalog gives its repository definition. When archetypeRepository and achetypeVersion are missing, the first archetype sharing both group and artifact ids found in any catalog, gives its repository and version definition. When archetypeGroupId or archetypeArtifactId is missing the standard selection behaviour occurs. -Darchetype.interactive Defined in settings.xml, this property allow the usage of archetype selection. defaults to @settings.interactiveMode @settings.localRepository Used to cache downloaded archetypes for configuration defined using executionProperties -DgroupId -DartifactId -Dversion -Dpackage -DanotherVelocityProperty these properties are used to configure the created project groupId (defaults to com.company) artifactId (defaults to project) version (defaults to 1.0-SNAPSHOT) package (defaults to groupId.artifactId) these properties should be renamed to target.groupId target.artifactId target.version target.package -Darchetype.interactive Defined in settings.xml, this property allow the usage of archetype selection. defaults to @settings.interactiveMode for generation -DarchetypeGoals comma separated list of goals called against the project after been created @basedir the directory where the project will be created for batch mode Beeing behind a proxy is automatically configured by Maven