diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index 639e63a..016b842 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -51,6 +51,7 @@
     </organization>
 
     <properties>
+        <!-- adding this comment as part of the merge hook test -->
         <!-- Project Encoding -->
         <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
         <project.build.resourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.resourceEncoding>