Maven Surefire Plugin Unit Testing Guide

Maven Surefire Plugin Unit Testing Guide | Generated by AI

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The Maven Surefire Plugin is the plugin that runs your unit tests during the test phase of a Maven build lifecycle. It’s one of the most commonly used Maven plugins because nearly every project needs automated testing integrated into its build.

What It Is

Name: maven-surefire-plugin
Purpose: Executes tests written with frameworks like JUnit (3, 4, 5), TestNG, etc.
Phase: Tied to the test phase of Maven’s default lifecycle.
Output: Generates test reports (by default in target/surefire-reports).

How It Works

When you run mvn test or mvn package, Maven invokes the Surefire plugin.
It scans your src/test/java directory for test classes.
By default, it looks for files matching naming conventions like:
- *Test.java
- Test*.java
- *Tests.java
- *TestCase.java
Executes them in an isolated classloader.
Writes results to target/surefire-reports (plain text, XML, and sometimes HTML via reporting plugins).

Basic Usage

You can configure it in your pom.xml:

<build>
  <plugins>
    <plugin>
      <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
      <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
      <version>3.2.5</version> <!-- use latest stable -->
    </plugin>
  </plugins>
</build>

After this, just run:

mvn test

Common Configurations

Include/exclude patterns:

<configuration>
  <includes>
    <include>**/*MyTest.java</include>
  </includes>
  <excludes>
    <exclude>**/IntegrationTest.java</exclude>
  </excludes>
</configuration>

System properties:

<configuration>
  <systemPropertyVariables>
    <env>dev</env>
  </systemPropertyVariables>
</configuration>

Parallel test execution:

<configuration>
  <forkCount>2</forkCount>
  <reuseForks>true</reuseForks>
  <parallel>classes</parallel>
</configuration>

This runs tests in multiple JVM forks or threads.

When to Use It

Anytime you want to integrate unit testing into your Maven lifecycle.
To separate unit tests (Surefire) from integration tests (Failsafe plugin):
- Surefire → unit tests (mvn test)
- Failsafe → integration tests (mvn verify)

✅ In short: maven-surefire-plugin is your go-to plugin for unit test execution in Maven projects. You configure it in pom.xml, run with mvn test, and review reports in target/surefire-reports.

Do you want me to also explain the difference between Surefire and Failsafe (since they’re often confused)?

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