So I am thinking the lifecycle should support the concept of *optional* phases.
If no subsequent phase depends on the output of an optional phase, and the optional phase was not explicitly called out on the invocation request, then Maven could drop the phase. By way of example, all the current test phases: generate-test-resources, test-compile, test, etc could be optional. The verify phase would depend on the result of the test phase. This means that: `mvn package` could bypass even doing anything with the tests (unless somebody bound jar:test-jar to the package phase - which would mean that test-compile was required but not test) If you wanted the tests run, you either go `mvn test package` (I think we can dedup redundant phases from the request) or `mvn verify` What this gets us is the ability to build targeted portions of the reactor without requiring that stuff be installed. Another idea I have is to allow @groupId:artifactId or @module/path (with wild cards for each) as suffixes to goals and phases... So mvn test@foo:bar-* Would load the whole reactor and apply the test phase to all modules in groupId foo with artifactIds starting with bar- but ensuring that any within reactor requirements have been minimally built... so if foo:bar-api depends on foo:manchu-api:jar then the build plan would include bringing manchu-api as far as the package phase (when the jar file is produced) If further to that, foo:bar-impl depends on foo:manchu-impl:(dir|jar) then the reactor would also include bringing manchu-impl as far as process-classes (when the classes dir is "produced" because the requirement is for either classes or jar) Of course all the above magically needs a simple sintax for users and easy to understand docs... both of which we may not be able to achieve... but the above goal is something I think we would love to have in 5.0.0... (and a pink fluffy unicorn too) -- Sent from my phone
