Running Maven Cucumber Test, I'm getting following error No goals have been specified for this build

Question

Im getting below error when I'm running my Cucumber Test, Can you guys please help in resolving the issue.

You must specify a valid lifecycle phase or a goal in the format <plugin-prefix>:<goal> or <plugin-group-id>:<plugin-artifact-id>[:<plugin-version>]:<goal>. Available lifecycle phases are: validate, initialize, generate-sources, process-sources, generate-resources, process-resources, compile, process-classes, generate-test-sources, process-test-sources, generate-test-resources, process-test-resources, test-compile, process-test-classes, test, prepare-package, package, pre-integration-test, integration-test, post-integration-test, verify, install, deploy, pre-clean, clean, post-clean, pre-site, site, post-site, site-deploy. -> [Help 1]
org.apache.maven.lifecycle.NoGoalSpecifiedException: No goals have been specified for this build. You must specify a valid lifecycle phase or a goal in the format <plugin-prefix>:<goal> or <plugin-group-id>:<plugin-artifact-id>[:<plugin-version>]:<goal>. Available lifecycle phases are: validate, initialize, generate-sources, process-sources, generate-resources, process-resources, compile, process-classes, generate-test-sources, process-test-sources, generate-test-resources, process-test-resources, test-compile, process-test-classes, test, prepare-package, package, pre-integration-test, integration-test, post-integration-test, verify, install, deploy, pre-clean, clean, post-clean, pre-site, site, post-site, site-deploy.

Please find my POM.xml below

<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>MavenFrame</groupId>
  <artifactId>SampleProject</artifactId>
  <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
  <packaging>jar</packaging>

  <name>SampleProject</name>
  <url>http://maven.apache.org</url>
    <dependencies>
        <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/info.cukes/cucumber-testng -->
<dependency>
    <groupId>info.cukes</groupId>
    <artifactId>cucumber-testng</artifactId>
    <version>1.2.5</version>
</dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>info.cukes</groupId>
            <artifactId>cucumber-jvm-deps</artifactId>
            <version>1.0.5</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>

      <dependency>
            <groupId>org.testng</groupId>
            <artifactId>testng</artifactId>
            <version>6.9.8</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>net.masterthought</groupId>
            <artifactId>cucumber-reporting</artifactId>
            <version>3.8.0</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-resources-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.4</version>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.14.1</version>
                <configuration>
                    <suiteXmlFiles>
                        <suiteXmlFile>testng.xml</suiteXmlFile>
                    </suiteXmlFiles>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>net.masterthought</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-cucumber-reporting</artifactId>
                <version>3.8.0</version>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <id>execution</id>
                        <phase>verify</phase>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>generate</goal>
                        </goals>
                        <configuration>
                            <projectName>MyProjectName</projectName>  <!-- Replace with project name -->
                            <outputDirectory>target/cucumber-reports/advanced-reports</outputDirectory>
                            <cucumberOutput>target/cucumber-reports/CucumberTestReport.json</cucumberOutput>
                            <buildNumber>1</buildNumber>
                            <parallelTesting>false</parallelTesting>
                        </configuration>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>
<!--   <properties>
    <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
  </properties>

  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>junit</groupId>
      <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
      <version>3.8.1</version>
      <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>
</project>

Answer 1

From your pom, you have specified <goal>generate</goal>.

From the error message, it seems this is not a valid goal:

"Available lifecycle phases are: validate, initialize, generate-sources, process-sources, generate-resources, process-resources, compile, process-classes, generate-test-sources, process-test-sources, generate-test-resources, process-test-resources, test-compile, process-test-classes, test, prepare-package, package, pre-integration-test, integration-test, post-integration-test, verify, install, deploy, pre-clean, clean, post-clean, pre-site, site, post-site, site-deploy."

So be more specific in what you want to generate: generate-sources, generate-resources, generate-test-sources, or generate-test-resources?

Answer 2

Just run with following command,

mvn verify

The error will go off. You can pass any valid goals like test, compile, test-compile, etc. I guess, you are running the mvn command without any parameter. please check the command line syntax.