With Maven, how can I build a distributable that has my project's jar and all of the dependent jars?

I have a project (of type 'jar') that (obviously) builds a jar. But that project has many dependencies. I'd like Maven to build a "package" or "assembly" that contains my jar, all the dependent jars, and some scripts (to launch the application, etc.)

What's the best way to go about this? Specifically, what's the best way to get the dependents into the assembly?

For a single module, I'd use an assembly looking like the following one (src/assembly/bin.xml):

<assembly>
  <id>bin</id>
  <formats>
    <format>tar.gz</format>
    <format>tar.bz2</format>
    <format>zip</format>
  </formats>
  <dependencySets>
    <dependencySet>
      <unpack>false</unpack>
      <scope>runtime</scope>
      <outputDirectory>lib</outputDirectory>
    </dependencySet>
  </dependencySets>
  <fileSets>
    <fileSet>
      <directory>src/main/command</directory>
      <outputDirectory>bin</outputDirectory>
      <includes>
        <include>*.sh</include>
        <include>*.bat</include>
      </includes>
    </fileSet>
  </fileSets>
</assembly>

To use this assembly, add the following configuration to your pom.xml:

  <plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
    <configuration>
      <descriptors>
        <descriptor>src/assembly/bin.xml</descriptor>
      </descriptors>
    </configuration>
    <executions>
      <execution>
        <phase>package</phase>
        <goals>
          <goal>single</goal>
        </goals>
      </execution>
    </executions>
  </plugin>

In this sample, start/stop scripts located under src/main/command and are bundled into bin, dependencies are bundled into lib. Customize it to suit your needs.

Here is my solution to create a distributable .zip (or .tar.gz / .tar.bz2) including all dependencies in a lib folder. It will:

1. Create a jar with a Manifest including the dependencies of the lib directory as the classpath and the main class to run when executing the jar.
2. Copy all dependent jars to the target/lib directory.
3. Create the distributable `zip with the main jar and all dependent jars of the lib directory.

Excerpt from pom.xml:

<!-- create distributable -->
<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
    <configuration>
        <archive>
            <manifest>
                <addClasspath>true</addClasspath>
                <classpathPrefix>lib/</classpathPrefix>
                <mainClass>full.path.to.MainClass</mainClass>
            </manifest>
        </archive>
    </configuration>
</plugin>
<plugin>
    <artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <phase>package</phase>
            <goals>
                <goal>copy-dependencies</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>
                <outputDirectory>${project.build.directory}/lib</outputDirectory>
            </configuration>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>
<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <phase>package</phase>
            <goals>
                <goal>attached</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>
                <descriptors>
                    <descriptor>src/main/resources/dist.xml</descriptor>
                </descriptors>
            </configuration>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

dist.xml:

<assembly
    xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-assembly-plugin/assembly/1.1.0"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-assembly-plugin/assembly/1.1.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/assembly-1.1.0.xsd">
    <id>bin</id>
    <formats>
        <format>zip</format>
        <format>tar.gz</format>
    </formats>
    <fileSets>
        <fileSet>
            <directory>${project.basedir}</directory>
            <outputDirectory>/</outputDirectory>
            <includes>
                <include>README*</include>
                <include>LICENSE*</include>
                <include>NOTICE*</include>
            </includes>
        </fileSet>
        <fileSet>
            <directory>${project.build.directory}</directory>
            <outputDirectory>/</outputDirectory>
            <includes>
                <include>*.jar</include>
            </includes>
        </fileSet>
        <fileSet>
            <directory>${project.build.directory}/lib</directory>
            <outputDirectory>lib</outputDirectory>
            <includes>
                <include>*.jar</include>
            </includes>
        </fileSet>
        <fileSet>
            <directory>${project.build.directory}/site</directory>
            <outputDirectory>docs</outputDirectory>
        </fileSet>
    </fileSets>
</assembly>

The dist.xml was derived from the bin descriptor format here: http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-assembly-plugin/descriptor-refs.html#bin