Maven: assembly-plugin is not run at all

Question

I am pretty new to Maven, tried to learn a couple of times before and figured I was better off without Maven. Now, (un)fortunately I have to use Maven in a project I'd like to contribute to. My problem at this point is regarding the packaging. I'd like to produce a self-contained (aka "fat") jar with all dependencies included, and a colleague who's played around with Maven helped me out with the pom file.

I have checked his pom files, as well as samples here on SO. The xml looks legit but the plugin is not run at all. Note that I get no errors, everything goes fine except I get no "fatjar". Any ideas what might be the cause of this problem?

Below is the relevant portion of the pom.xml. I have seen contradicting code samples with regards to positioning of <configuration> and <executions> tags, tried pretty much every variation I have found, still no joy.

<plugin>
  <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>2.3</version>
  <executions>
    <execution>
        <id>make-jar-with-dependencies</id> <!-- this is used for inheritance merges -->
        <phase>package</phase> <!-- bind to the packaging phase -->
        <goals>
            <goal>single</goal>
        </goals>
    </execution>
  </executions>
  <configuration>
    <finalName>ProjectName</finalName>
    <appendAssemblyId>true</appendAssemblyId>
    <descriptorRefs>
      <descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>
    </descriptorRefs>
    <archive>
      <manifest>
        <mainClass>org.mydomain.ProjectName</mainClass>
        <addClasspath>true</addClasspath>
      </manifest>
    </archive>
  </configuration>
</plugin>

Edit_1 the console output from mvn clean package as asked by @khmarbaise

[INFO] 
[INFO] --- maven-clean-plugin:2.4.1:clean (default-clean) @ myproject ---
[INFO] Deleting /home/user/workspace/project/target
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- maven-resources-plugin:2.5:resources (default-resources) @ myproject ---
[debug] execute contextualize
[WARNING] Using platform encoding (UTF-8 actually) to copy filtered resources, i.e. build is platform dependent!
[INFO] Copying 41 resources
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- maven-compiler-plugin:2.3.2:compile (default-compile) @ myproject ---
[WARNING] File encoding has not been set, using platform encoding UTF-8, i.e. build is platform dependent!
[INFO] Compiling 292 source files to /home/user/workspace/project/target/classes
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- maven-resources-plugin:2.5:testResources (default-testResources) @ myproject ---
[debug] execute contextualize
[WARNING] Using platform encoding (UTF-8 actually) to copy filtered resources, i.e. build is platform dependent!
[INFO] skip non existing resourceDirectory /home/user/workspace/project/src/test/resources
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- maven-compiler-plugin:2.3.2:testCompile (default-testCompile) @ myproject ---
[INFO] Nothing to compile - all classes are up to date
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- maven-surefire-plugin:2.10:test (default-test) @ myproject ---
[INFO] No tests to run.
[INFO] Surefire report directory: /home/user/workspace/project/target/surefire-reports

-------------------------------------------------------
 T E S T S
-------------------------------------------------------
Results :
Tests run: 0, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- maven-jar-plugin:2.3.2:jar (default-jar) @ myproject ---
[INFO] Building jar: /home/user/workspace/project/target/myproject-2.0.jar
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 12.210s
[INFO] Finished at: Thu Jun 07 11:45:14 CEST 2012
[INFO] Final Memory: 18M/184M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Answer 1

I would recommend to create a uberjar by using the maven-shade-plugin, cause it's intention is exactly that purpose. You can do that with the maven-assembly-plugin as well.

So after taking a look into your pom i understand the problem. First you defined the maven-assembly-plugin in the pluginManagement block which will NOT execute a plugin furthermore you have defined the maven-assembly-plugin as a dependency separately which is superfluous. Which means simply remove the following from your pom:

<dependency>
   <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
   <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
   <version>2.3</version>
   <type>maven-plugin</type>
</dependency>

You should define the maven-assembler-plugin like this:

<build>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
            ...all your configuration here..
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>

Furthermore i've seen many repository definition which should be handled by repository manager instead. About the repositories in your pom i can recommend reading the sonatype information furthermore you should think about some else will use the project behind a proxy etc. than he has to change you pom to get i working or can't use it cause you defined repositories in your pom he can't reach.