Copy snapshot artifact from nexus without pom - maven

Question

I want to download a snapshot artifact using the dependecy.copy target. I don't want to have a POM file.
mvn -U dependency:copy -Dartifact=mygroupId:myArtifactId:myversion-SNAPSHOT:jar
Unfortunately this only works if the artifact is already in the local maven repo cache. When it's not in the maven cache I get the following error:
Unable to find artifact.
...
foo-public (https://nexus.foo.org/content/groups/public-foo/, releases=true, snapshots=false)
It says foo-public because I'm using a settings.xml
<mirror>
<id>foo</id>
<mirrorOf>*</mirrorOf>
<name>My Maven Nexus Repository</name>
<url>http://nexus.foo.org/content/groups/public-foo/</url>
</mirror>
The reason seems to be that Maven's Super POM has set snapshots=false for the central repo. If I add a minimalistic pom.xml to the working directory I don't have the error as snapshots=true seems to be the default for any other repo.
<project>
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>dummy</groupId>
<artifactId>dummy</artifactId>
<version>1</version>
<repositories>
<repository>
<id>dummy</id>
<url>dummy</url>
</repository>
</repositories>
</project>
My current work around is to write the dummy POM before calling my mvn command. Another possible work around is to add the following to settings.xml (Found in Sonatype nexus book)
<profiles>
<profile>
<id>nexus</id>
<!--Enable snapshots for the built in central repo to direct -->
<!--all requests to nexus via the mirror -->
<repositories>
<repository>
<id>central</id>
<url>http://central</url>
<releases><enabled>true</enabled></releases>
<snapshots><enabled>true</enabled></snapshots>
</repository>
</repositories>
</profile>
</profiles>
<activeProfiles>
<!--make the profile active all the time -->
<activeProfile>nexus</activeProfile>
</activeProfiles>
Do you have a more elegant idea that works without so much preparation? For instance a command line switch?

Answer 1

One solution is to use dependency:get goal instead of dependeny:copy goal, see Apache Maven Dependency Plugin:
The dependency:get Mojo
This mojo is used to fetch an artifact and (optionally) its dependencies from remote repositories using its Maven coordinates.
mvn dependency:get -DgroupId=org.apache.maven -DartifactId=maven-core -Dversion=2.2.1 -Dpackaging=jar -Dclassifier=sources -DremoteRepositories=central::default::http://repo1.maven.apache.org/maven2,myrepo::::http://myrepo.com/maven2
mvn dependency:get -DgroupId=org.apache.maven -DartifactId=maven-core -Dversion=2.2.1 -Dpackaging=jar -Dclassifier=sources -DremoteRepositories=http://repo1.maven.apache.org/maven2
mvn dependency:get -Dartifact=org.apache.maven:maven-core:2.2.1:jar:sources -DremoteRepositories=http://repo1.maven.apache.org/maven2 -Ddest=/tmp/myfile.jar
Your modified command:
mvn dependency:get -U -DgroupId=mygroupId -DartifactId=myArtifactId -Dversion=myversion-SNAPSHOT -Dpackaging=jar -Dtransitive=false -s settings.xml -DremoteRepositories=https://nexus.foo.org/content/groups/public-foo/ -Ddest=target/myArtifactId.jar