maven plugin descriptor not getting generated

Question

I'm creating a maven plugin, MVN clean install build succeeds but plugin.xml is not getting generated.

@Mojo( name = "cover",  defaultPhase = LifecyclePhase.POST_INTEGRATION_TEST)
public class RunCoverage extends AbstractMojo
{

    @Parameter( property = "cover.wadl", defaultValue = "test")
    private String wadl;

    @Parameter( property = "cover.endpoints",defaultValue = "test")
    private String endpoints;

    @Override
    public void execute() throws MojoExecutionException
    {
        <somecode>
    }
}

And the pom.xml is

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <artifactId>end-point-test-coverage</artifactId>
    <version>1</version>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-plugin-api</artifactId>
            <version>2.0</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugin-tools</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-plugin-annotations</artifactId>
            <version>3.2</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-plugin-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>3.2</version>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <id>default-descriptor</id>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>descriptor</goal>
                        </goals>
                        <phase>process-classes</phase>
                    </execution>
                    <execution>
                        <id>help-descriptor</id>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>helpmojo</goal>
                        </goals>
                        <phase>process-classes</phase>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
                <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.0.2</version>
                <configuration>
                    <source>1.6</source>
                    <target>1.6</target>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>

Maven clean install doesn't generate plugin.xml

When used in a dependent project, I'm getting the following error

Failed to parse plugin descriptor for it.gruppopam.common:end-point-test-coverage:1 (/home/d/.m2/repository/it/common/end-point-test-coverage/1/end-point-test-coverage-1.jar): No plugin descriptor found at META-INF/maven/plugin.xml -> [Help 1] [ERROR]

Answer 1

First i would try to set the packaging type to maven-plugin instead of the default which is jar. Furthermore i would suggest to use more up-to-date versions of plugins (maven-compiler-plugin: 3.1) and use a more up-to-date version of maven-plugin-api (3.0? but not 2.0).

Answer 2

you have to remember to change it in your pom.xml to:

<packaging>maven-plugin</packaging>

it is by default:

<packaging>jar</packaging>