Question

So I have something like:

<plugin>
            <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
            <artifactId>properties-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>1.0-alpha-1</version>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <phase>initialize</phase>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>read-properties</goal>
                    </goals>
                    <configuration>
                        <files>
                            <file>${user.home}/build.properties</file>
                        </files>
                    </configuration>
                </execution>
            </executions>
        </plugin>

and I have distributionManagement like:

<distributionManagement>
    <repository>
        <id>local-repo</id>
        <url>file:///${deploy.dir}/${project.artifactId}</url>
    </repository>
</distributionManagement>

I don’t have a remote repository, that is why I am doing it using file:///

${deploy.dir} is a property from the build.properties file and it will not take the value for that property.
Why?

Answer 1

Mark’s answer is probably the way to go, and is what I’m doing to switch between our production and test instances of our remote repository. Per a discussion I found it sounds like you can load properties for use in later plugin configurations, but core maven model elements like <distributionManagement> only have properties interpreted on initial load of the POM.

(Moving comment to answer per OP request.)