How to put jars in the same folder with the Maven Assembly Plugin

Question

I have a multi-module Apache Maven 3.3.3 project with n*** (multiple) module projects:

/mvnModular
           /modules
           /modules /mainApp    /pom.xml
           /modules /module1    /pom.xml
           /modules /module2    /pom.xml
           /modules /moduleChat /pom.xml
           /modules /moduleBlog /pom.xml

...

modules has only one file, pom.xml:

<groupId>mainmod.modules</groupId>
<artifactId>modules</artifactId>
<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<packaging>pom</packaging>

<modules>
  <module>..\mainApp\pom.xml</module>
  <module>..\module1\pom.xml</module>
  <module>..\module2\pom.xml</module>
  <module>..\moduleChat\pom.xml</module>
  <module>..\moduleBlog\pom.xml</module>
</modules>

...

How can I go about adding all the .jar files from the individual modules projects into a folder, called lib, in the project root folder, mvnModular?

This is what I would like at the end:

/mvnModular
    mainApp.jar
                /lib
                /lib    /module1.jar
                /lib    /module2.jar
                /lib    /moduleChat.jar
                /lib    /moduleBlog.jar

.....

The individual modules have a pom.xml file like this one:

<parent>
  <groupId>mainmod.modules</groupId>
  <artifactId>modules</artifactId>
  <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
  <relativePath>../modules/pom.xml</relativePath>
</parent>

<groupId>mainmod.modules.module2</groupId>
<artifactId>module2</artifactId>
<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<packaging>jar</packaging>

<name>module1</name>

---

UPDATE

The idea is to have an application written in a way that a user will download the project mainApp that contains mainApp.jar in the root mvnModular folder innitially, which is the main project. Then the application (mainApp.jar) could be extended by adding modules to a folder called packages in the mvnModular root.

Answer 1

You can use maven-antrun-plugin for that. This will have to be added to every module.

Check the sample below.

parent POM

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <groupId>TestMavenModules</groupId>
    <artifactId>TestMavenModules</artifactId>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>pom</packaging>
    <modules>
        <module>Module1</module>
        <module>Module2</module>
    </modules>

</project>

Module1 POM

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <parent>
        <groupId>TestMavenModules</groupId>
        <artifactId>TestMavenModules</artifactId>
        <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    </parent>
    <artifactId>Module</artifactId>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>1.7</version>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <phase>package</phase>
                        <configuration>
                            <target>
                                <copy
                                    file="${project.build.directory}/${project.artifactId}-${project.version}.jar"
                                    todir="../PackagedJars" />
                            </target>
                        </configuration>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>run</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>

Module2 POM

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <parent>
        <groupId>TestMavenModules</groupId>
        <artifactId>TestMavenModules</artifactId>
        <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    </parent>
    <artifactId>Module2</artifactId>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>1.7</version>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <phase>package</phase>
                        <configuration>
                            <target>
                                <copy
                                    file="${project.build.directory}/${project.artifactId}-${project.version}.jar"
                                    todir="../PackagedJars" />
                            </target>
                        </configuration>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>run</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>

Finally you'll have jars in PackagedJars directory in the root.

/PackagedJars
----/Module1-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar
----/Module2-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar