It is sometimes useful to use your own hand crafted manifest file. You can do this with this plugin. To use the manifest file src/main/resources/META-INF/MANIFEST.MF put this configuration in your pom.xml:
<project> ... <build> <plugins> <plugin> <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId> <artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId> ... <configuration> <archive> <manifestFile>src/main/resources/META-INF/MANIFEST.MF</manifestFile> </archive> </configuration> ... </plugin> </plugins> </build> ... </project>