Jacoco Maven Plugin - Plugin execution not covered by lifecycle configuration - maven

Question

I'm new to Maven and want to use the Jacoco Maven Plugin to build my projects.
I've set up an example project with TestNG the only dependency.
Here is part of the pom.xml:
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.testng</groupId>
<artifactId>testng</artifactId>
<version>6.8</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.jacoco</groupId>
<artifactId>jacoco-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>0.6.2.201302030002</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<goals>
<goal>prepare-agent</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
<execution>
<id>report</id>
<phase>prepare-package</phase>
<goals>
<goal>report</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
And i get this error:
Plugin execution not covered by lifecycle configuration: org.jacoco:jacoco-maven-
plugin:0.6.2.201302030002:prepare-agent (execution: default, phase: initialize)
What am I doing wrong ?
Cheers

Answer 1

You can ignore the plugin goal, adding something like this to your pom.xml
<pluginManagement>
<plugins>
<!--This plugin's configuration is used to store Eclipse m2e settings only.
It has no influence on the Maven build itself.-->
<plugin>
<groupId>org.eclipse.m2e</groupId>
<artifactId>lifecycle-mapping</artifactId>
<version>1.0.0</version>
<configuration>
<lifecycleMappingMetadata>
<pluginExecutions>
<pluginExecution>
<pluginExecutionFilter>
<groupId>org.jacoco</groupId>
<artifactId>jacoco-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<versionRange>[0.5,)
</versionRange>
<goals>
<goal>prepare-agent</goal>
</goals>
</pluginExecutionFilter>
<action>
<!-- m2e doesn't know what to do with jacoco,
let's ignore it or annoying error markers appear
see http://wiki.eclipse.org/M2E_plugin_execution_not_covered
-->
<ignore></ignore>
</action>
</pluginExecution>
</pluginExecutions>
</lifecycleMappingMetadata>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</pluginManagement>

Answer 2

As this is related to the Eclipse Maven plugin, alternatively this can be set locally in Eclipse's preferences. Moving the configuration out of the project's pom file helps the code simple and clean, free of IDE particulars.
Go to Eclipse --> Preferences --> Maven --> Lifecycle Mappings. Add lifecycle-mapping-metadata.xml as the following:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<lifecycleMappingMetadata>
<pluginExecutions>
<pluginExecution>
<pluginExecutionFilter>
<groupId>org.jacoco</groupId>
<artifactId>jacoco-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<versionRange>[0.5,)</versionRange>
<goals>
<goal>prepare-agent</goal>
</goals>
</pluginExecutionFilter>
<action>
<ignore />
</action>
</pluginExecution>
</pluginExecutions>
</lifecycleMappingMetadata>
Reload the life-cycle mappings file and then Maven --> Update Project

Answer 3

Eclipse now offers a quick fix to disable the warning and save those in user preferences (in Eclipse --> Preferences --> Maven --> Lifecycle Mappings lifecycle-mapping-metadata.xml as noted by #iker-aguayo ) so you don't have to manually create or edit the file. This is useful in cases where you can't update the pom (such as using an open source project where you cannot commit.)

Answer 4

I eventually chose to ignore the plugin and use the CLI mvn command instead for the test with code coverage.
Inside your Eclipse IDE, right click on the red color-marked warning for the
jacoco-maven-plugin. You should three options in the popup to fix the warning, choose to ignore the warning, that would result an automatically generated section in your pom.xml, that started with a line of comments,
<!--This plugin's configuration is used to store Eclipse m2e settings only. It has no influence on the Maven build itself.-->
At a command line, run the mvn command before each checkin, and that should trigger the test goal with coverage,
$mvn clean package

Answer 5

This problem is specific to Eclipse, as outlined on the M2E wiki. Sorry I can't help more than that, as I don't use Eclipse.