apache/maven · warning

Ignored invalid goal specification '{}' from lifecycle mappi

Error message

Ignored invalid goal specification '{}' from lifecycle mapping for phase {}

What it means

DefaultLifecyclePluginAnalyzer converts a packaging's lifecycle mapping into plugin executions for the 'clean-less' default lifecycle analysis. parseGoalSpec returns null for any goal string that is not exactly groupId:artifactId:goal or groupId:artifactId:version:goal; such entries are skipped with this warning, leaving the phase without that execution.

Source

Thrown at impl/maven-core/src/main/java/org/apache/maven/lifecycle/internal/DefaultLifecyclePluginAnalyzer.java:144

        return lookup.lookupOptional(LifecycleMapping.class, packaging).orElse(null);
    }

    private void parseLifecyclePhaseDefinitions(Map<Plugin, Plugin> plugins, String phase, LifecyclePhase goals) {
        InputSource inputSource = new InputSource();
        inputSource.setModelId(DefaultLifecycleRegistry.DEFAULT_LIFECYCLE_MODELID);
        InputLocation location = new InputLocation(-1, -1, inputSource);
        location.setLocation(0, location);

        List<LifecycleMojo> mojos = goals.getMojos();
        if (mojos != null) {

            for (int i = 0; i < mojos.size(); i++) {
                LifecycleMojo mojo = mojos.get(i);

                GoalSpec gs = parseGoalSpec(mojo.getGoal());

                if (gs == null) {
                    logger.warn(
                            "Ignored invalid goal specification '{}' from lifecycle mapping for phase {}",
                            mojo.getGoal(),
                            phase);
                    continue;
                }

                Plugin plugin = new Plugin();
                plugin.setGroupId(gs.groupId);
                plugin.setArtifactId(gs.artifactId);
                plugin.setVersion(gs.version);

                plugin.setLocation("", location);
                plugin.setLocation("groupId", location);
                plugin.setLocation("artifactId", location);
                plugin.setLocation("version", location);

                Plugin existing = plugins.get(plugin);
                if (existing != null) {

View on GitHub (pinned to e4093d4e12)

Solutions

1. Fix the goal specification in the packaging plugin's lifecycle mapping to groupId:artifactId[:version]:goal
2. Reinstall the packaging plugin and re-run so the corrected mapping is re-analyzed
3. Confirm the phase executes the expected goals afterwards (mvn -X shows the derived plugin executions)

Example fix

# lifecycle mapping goal specs
# before
my-plugin:my-goal                 # invalid: 2 segments
com.acme:my-plugin:1.0:my-goal:extra  # invalid: 5 segments
# after
com.acme:my-plugin:my-goal        # 3 segments: ok
com.acme:my-plugin:1.0:my-goal    # 4 segments: ok

// guard in DefaultLifecyclePluginAnalyzer-style flows: reject bad specs before analysis
static boolean isValidGoalSpec(String goal) {
    String[] p = goal.split(":");
    return (p.length == 3 || p.length == 4) && Arrays.stream(p).noneMatch(String::isEmpty);
}

if (!isValidGoalSpec(mojo.getGoal())) failFast(mojo.getGoal());

When it happens

Trigger: The <lifecycle> metadata of a custom packaging (its LifecycleMojo list) contains a malformed goal string - wrong segment count, empty segments, or a stray prefix - when Maven derives the default lifecycle plugin bindings for the packaging.

Common situations: Hand-written packaging descriptors; copy-paste from documentation examples that omit the groupId; mappings edited directly inside the built plugin jar.

Related errors

• Ignored invalid goal specification '{}' from lifecycle mappi
• No plugin descriptor found at ${pluginDescriptorLocation}
• Invalid 'requiredJavaVersion' given in plugin descriptor
• Duplicated lifecycle phase {}. Defined in {} but also in {}

AI-assisted analysis of apache/maven@e4093d4e12 (2026-08-21). Data as JSON: /api/errors/a6c4e87ab1635429. Report an issue: GitHub.