How to add a local lib directory to Maven

Sometimes there is a dependency not available at a remote repository and one is too lazy to set up a local maven repository – that’s when one adds a directory in the project structure and wants maven to find dependencies there.

Create a directory called “lib” in the project root

Add the following markup to the pom.xml inside the <repositories>-Tag (create if it does not exist):

<repository>
    <id>lib</id>
    <name>lib</name>
    <releases>
        <enabled>true</enabled>
        <checksumPolicy>ignore</checksumPolicy>
    </releases>
    <snapshots>
        <enabled>false</enabled>
    </snapshots>
    <url>file://${project.basedir}/lib</url>
</repository>

Assuming you’ve got a jar file with artifactId=mylibrary, groupId=com.hascode.plugin and a version=1.0.0 you should first rename your jar file to artifactId-version.jar – in the given example this would be mylibrary-1.0.0.jar
In the next step you should create a specific directory structure in your lib folder : Create a sub directory for each part of your groupId, then inside a directory named after the artifactId and inside of this one a directory named after the version. Put the jar in this last directory!
```
mkdir -p com/hascode/plugin/mylibrary/1.0.0
```
```
lib
`-- com
    `-- hascode
        `-- plugin
            `-- mylibrary
                `-- 1.0.0
                    `-- mylibrary-1.0.0.jar
```
You should now be able to build your project with the bundled dependency .. if you’re using the Maven Eclipse Plugin a refresh of the Maven configuration might be needed…