Many Java archive generating plugins accept the archive configuration element to customize the generation of the archive. In the standard Maven Plugins, this includes the jar, war, ejb, ear and assembly plugins.

Disabling Maven Meta Information

By default, Maven generated archives include the META-INF/maven directory, which contains the pom.xml file used to build the archive, and a pom.properties file that includes some basic properties in a small, easier to read format.

To disable the generation of these files, include the following configuration for your plugin (in this example, the WAR plugin is used):

<project>
  ...
  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.6</version>
        <configuration>
          <archive>
            <addMavenDescriptor>false</addMavenDescriptor>
          </archive>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>
  ...
</project>

Configuring the Manifest

The archive configuration also accepts manifest configuration. See Guide to Working with Manifests for more information.

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