I would like my project to generate javadoc and sources artifacts only when I activate the deploy phase, not when I ask for mvn install. That is because I only need those artifacts when deploying, and I want to save time when not deploying.
Therefore, I thought about binding the maven-source-plugin goal to the deploy phase.
But, I need those artifacts to exist at the time the deploy goal runs. Thus, the source and javadoc generation goals must run before the deploy goal. Unfortunately, the goal from the packaging is executed first (as documented).
I am aware the usual advice is to define a “release” profile and define the javadoc plugin (and related ones) only there. But this seems needlessly complicated for my simple use case. Now I need to think about activating the release profile exactly when I ask for deploying, I would prefer the right plugins to be activated automatically depending on the phase I ask for.
I am surprised this does not seem to be considered possible or even desirable by Maven (as it does not seem to allow for a goal to run in the deploy phase but before the deploy goal). Did I miss something, is this possible? Or, is there any reason not to do it in the way I consider? (Otherwise, I am thinking about introducing a feature request.)