List of predefined Maven properties

This list originated from a wiki page from Codehaus (http://docs.codehaus.org/display/MAVENUSER/MavenPropertiesGuide) which unfortunately has been gone with the shutdown of Codehaus

Note: In Maven 3.0, all pom.* properties are deprecated. Use project.* instead!

Built-in properties

${project.basedir} represents the directory containing pom.xml (deprecated: ${basedir})
${project.baseUri} the directory containing the pom.xml file as URI
${project.version} (deprecated: ${pom.version} and ${version})
${maven.home} The path to the current Maven home
${maven.version} The version number of the current Maven execution (since 3.0.4)
${maven.build.version} The full build version of the current Maven execution (since 3.0.4). For example, "Apache Maven 3.2.2 (r01de14724cdef164cd33c7c8c2fe155faf9602da; 2013-02-19T14:51:28+01:00)".

Pom/Project properties

All elements in the pom.xml, can be referenced with the project. prefix. This list is just an example of some commonly used elements. (deprecated: ${pom.} prefix)
${project.build.directory} results in the path to your "target" directory ${project.build.outputDirectory} results in the path to your "target/classes" directory
${project.name} refers to the name of the project (deprecated: ${pom.name} ).
${project.version} refers to the version of the project (deprecated: ${pom.version}). ${project.artifactId} refers to the artifactId of the project ${project.groupId} refers to the groupId of the project
${project.build.finalName} refers to the final name of the file created when the built project is packaged ${project.multiModuleProjectDirectory} refers to the parent POM in a multi-module project

Local user settings

Similarly, values in the user's settings.xml can be referenced using property names with settings. prefix. ${settings.localRepository} refers to the path of the user's local repository

Environment variables

Environment variables can be referenced using the env prefix
${env.M2_HOME} returns the Maven2 installation path.
${java.home} specifies the path to the current JRE_HOME environment use with relative paths to get for example: <jvm>${java.home}../bin/java.exe</jvm>

Java system properties

All Java System Properties defined by the JVM: ${file.separator}
${java.class.path}
${java.home}
${java.vendor}
${java.vendor.url}
${java.version}
${line.separator}
${os.arch}
${os.name}
${os.version}
${path.separator}
${user.dir}
${user.home}
${user.name}
...

Custom properties in the POM

User defined properties in the pom.xml.

<project>
...
  <properties>
     <my.filter.value>hello</my.filter.value>
  </properties>
...
</project>

${my.filter.value} will result in hello if you inserted the above XML fragment in your pom.xml

Build Information

${build.timestamp} or ${maven.build.timestamp} UTC timestamp of build start (default format: yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss'Z'), format can be overridden with ${maven.build.timestamp.format}

Parent Project variables

How can parent project variables be accessed? You can use the prefix: ${project.parent}. A good way to determine possible variables is to have a look directly at the API. I'm currently using Maven 2.2.1, and to access the Parent you can use ${project.parent}. This will return an org.apache.maven.project.MavenProject instance.
To access the parent version: ${parent.version}.

Reflection Properties

The pattern ${someX.someY.someZ} can simply sometimes mean getSomeX().getSomeY().getSomeZ(). Thus, properties such as ${project.build.directory} is translated to getProject().getBuild().getDirectory().

Further information

http://maven.apache.org/components/ref/3-LATEST/maven-model-builder/