Question

I have a dependency that is needed for a compilation and runtime but I want to exclude it when running tests. Is this possible? Maybe, by setting up a profile? But how do I deactivate it only for test lifecycle phase?

Answer 1

You could (re)configure the classpath during the test phase thanks to the maven surefire plugin. You can add classpath elements or exclude dependencies.

<project>
  [...]
  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.12.2</version>
        <configuration>
          <additionalClasspathElements>
            <additionalClasspathElement>path/to/additional/resources</additionalClasspathElement>
            <additionalClasspathElement>path/to/additional/jar</additionalClasspathElement>
          </additionalClasspathElements>
          <classpathDependencyExcludes>
            <classpathDependencyExclude>org.apache.commons:commons-email</classpathDependencyExclude>
          </classpathDependencyExcludes>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>
  [...]
</project>

As noted by @jFrenetic you could do the same with maven-failsafe-plugin.