List of predefined Maven properties

This list originated from a wiki page from Codehaus (http://docs.codehaus.org/display/MAVENUSER/MavenPropertiesGuide) which unfortunately has been gone with the shutdown of Codehaus

Note: In Maven 3.0, all pom.* properties are deprecated. Use project.* instead!

Built-in properties

${project.basedir} represents the directory containing pom.xml (deprecated: ${basedir})
${project.baseUri} the directory containing the pom.xml file as URI
${project.version} (deprecated: ${pom.version} and ${version})
${maven.home} The path to the current Maven home
${maven.version} The version number of the current Maven execution (since 3.0.4)
${maven.build.version} The full build version of the current Maven execution (since 3.0.4). For example, "Apache Maven 3.2.2 (r01de14724cdef164cd33c7c8c2fe155faf9602da; 2013-02-19T14:51:28+01:00)".

Pom/Project properties

All elements in the pom.xml, can be referenced with the project. prefix. This list is just an example of some commonly used elements. (deprecated: ${pom.} prefix)
${project.build.directory} results in the path to your "target" directory ${project.build.outputDirectory} results in the path to your "target/classes" directory
${project.name} refers to the name of the project (deprecated: ${pom.name} ).
${project.version} refers to the version of the project (deprecated: ${pom.version}).
${project.groupId} refers to the groupId of the project
${project.build.finalName} refers to the final name of the file created when the built project is packaged

Local user settings

Similarly, values in the user's settings.xml can be referenced using property names with settings. prefix. ${settings.localRepository} refers to the path of the user's local repository

Environment variables

Environment variables can be referenced using the env prefix
${env.M2_HOME} returns the Maven2 installation path.
${java.home} specifies the path to the current JRE_HOME environment use with relative paths to get for example: <jvm>${java.home}../bin/java.exe</jvm>

Java system properties

All Java System Properties defined by the JVM: ${file.separator}
${java.class.path}
${java.home}
${java.vendor}
${java.vendor.url}
${java.version}
${line.separator}
${os.arch}
${os.name}
${os.version}
${path.separator}
${user.dir}
${user.home}
${user.name}
...

Custom properties in the POM

User defined properties in the pom.xml.

<project>
...
  <properties>
     <my.filter.value>hello</my.filter.value>
  </properties>
...
</project>

${my.filter.value} will result in hello if you inserted the above XML fragment in your pom.xml

Build Information

${build.timestamp} or ${maven.build.timestamp} UTC timestamp of build start (default format: yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss'Z'), format can be overridden with ${maven.build.timestamp.format}

Parent Project variables

How can parent project variables be accessed? You can use the prefix: ${project.parent}. A good way to determine possible variables is to have a look directly at the API. I'm currently using Maven 2.2.1, and to access the Parent you can use ${project.parent}. This will return an org.apache.maven.project.MavenProject instance.
To access the parent version: ${parent.version}.

Reflection Properties

The pattern ${someX.someY.someZ} can simply sometimes mean getSomeX().getSomeY().getSomeZ(). Thus, properties such as ${project.build.directory} is translated to getProject().getBuild().getDirectory().

Further information

http://maven.apache.org/components/ref/3-LATEST/maven-model-builder/