Exclude all transitive dependencies of all dependencies?

Question

I am working on a maven project and i need to exclude all transitive dependencies. I have seen the "exclude"tag that is used inside "dependency"tag. But i have a lot of dependencies and writing this tag in every dependency is a huge task. So there is any method where i can exclude all transitive dependencies in a much easier way?

Answer 1

Ever since Maven 3.2.1, you can use wildcards in dependency exclusions.

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.apache.maven</groupId>
      <artifactId>maven-embedder</artifactId>
      <version>3.1.0</version>
      <exclusions>
        <exclusion>
          <groupId>*</groupId>
          <artifactId>*</artifactId>
        </exclusion>
      </exclusions>
    </dependency>
    ...
</dependencies>

You will still have to insert the wildcard exclusion into every single dependency though.

---

Here's an example pom with a Groovy script (executed through the Groovy Maven Plugin) that excludes all transitive dependencies:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<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>org.test</groupId>
    <artifactId>non-transitive-deps</artifactId>
    <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.codehaus.gmaven</groupId>
                <artifactId>groovy-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.0</version>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <id>exclude-transitive-deps</id>
                        <phase>validate</phase>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>execute</goal>
                        </goals>
                        <configuration>
                            <source>
                                def exclusion = new org.apache.maven.model.Exclusion();
                                exclusion.groupId='*'
                                exclusion.artifactId='*'
                                project.dependencies.each{
                                    d -> d.addExclusion(exclusion)
                                }
                            </source>
                        </configuration>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-orm</artifactId>
            <version>4.3.7.RELEASE</version>
        </dependency>
   </dependencies>
</project>

Output for mvn dependency:tree:

[INFO] --- maven-dependency-plugin:2.8:tree (default-cli) @ non-transitive-deps ---
[INFO] org.test:non-transitive-deps:jar:1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] \- org.springframework:spring-orm:jar:4.3.7.RELEASE:compile
[INFO]    +- org.springframework:spring-beans:jar:4.3.7.RELEASE:compile
[INFO]    +- org.springframework:spring-core:jar:4.3.7.RELEASE:compile
[INFO]    |  \- commons-logging:commons-logging:jar:1.2:compile
[INFO]    +- org.springframework:spring-jdbc:jar:4.3.7.RELEASE:compile
[INFO]    \- org.springframework:spring-tx:jar:4.3.7.RELEASE:compile

Output for mvn validate dependency:tree:

[INFO] --- maven-dependency-plugin:2.8:tree (default-cli) @ non-transitive-deps ---
[INFO] org.test:non-transitive-deps:jar:1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] \- org.springframework:spring-orm:jar:4.3.7.RELEASE:compile

So while this groovy script solves your problem, it only does so when a Maven lifecycle phase is executed (not when you trigger a plugin goal directly). validate is the earliest stage in the lifecycle, long before dependency resolution takes place.

And no, I am not aware of any less verbose solution.