Native Image Maven Plugin

To simplify the generation of native images, Native Image now works out of Maven with the Native Image Maven Plugin.

One can build a native image directly with Maven using the mvn package command without running the native-image tool as a separate step. It is sufficient to add native-image-maven-plugin into the <plugins> section of the pom.xml file:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.graalvm.nativeimage</groupId>
    <artifactId>native-image-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>${graalvm.version}</version>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <goals>
                <goal>native-image</goal>
            </goals>
            <phase>package</phase>
        </execution>
    </executions>
    <configuration>
        <skip>false</skip>
        <imageName>example</imageName>
        <buildArgs>
            --no-fallback
        </buildArgs>
    </configuration>
</plugin>

and the org.graalvm.sdk library dependency in the <dependencies> list:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.graalvm.sdk</groupId>
    <artifactId>graal-sdk</artifactId>
    <version>${graalvm.version}</version>
    <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>

The plugin figures out what jar files it needs to pass to the native image and what the executable main class should be. If the heuristics fails with the no main manifest attribute, in target/<name>.jar error, the main class should be specified in the <configuration> node of the plugin (see Plugin Customization section). When mvn package completes, an executable, generated in the target directory of the project, is ready for use.

Maven Plugin Customization #

When using GraalVM Enterprise as the JAVA_HOME environment, the plugin builds a native image with enterprise features enabled, e.g., an executable will automatically be built with compressed references and other optimizations enabled.

It is also possible to customize native-image-maven-plugin within a <configuration> node. The following configurations are available.

1. Configuration parameter <mainClass>. If the execution fails with the no main manifest attribute, in target/<name>.jar error, the main class should be specified. By default the plugin consults several locations in the pom.xml file in the following order to determine what the main class of the image should be:
   • <maven-shade-plugin> <transformers> <transformer> <mainClass>
   • <maven-assembly-plugin> <archive> <manifest> <mainClass>
   • <maven-jar-plugin> <archive> <manifest> <mainClass>
2. Configuration parameter <imageName>. If an image filename is not set explicitly, use parameter <imageName> to provide a custom filename for the image.
3. Configuration parameter <buildArgs>. If you want to pass additional options for the image building, use the <buildArgs> parameter the definition of the plugin. For example, to build a native image with assertions enabled that uses com.test.classname as a main class, add:

<configuration>
    <imageName>executable-name</imageName>
    <mainClass>com.test.classname</mainClass>
    <buildArgs>
        --no-fallback
    </buildArgs>
    <skip>false</skip>
</configuration>