Apache Maven is probably the most common build management system used—we can consider this the de facto standard for build and package operations for Java applications. In this section, we will use it to build and package our application.

Vert.x is compatible with Apache Maven 3.2 or above and, in order to easily manage all Vert.x dependencies, in particular the right versions, you can set your Maven POM file to inherit from the vertx-stack-depchain BOM.

The following is an example of a pom.xml that you can use in your Vert.x application:

<?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>

...

<properties>
   <java.version>1.8</java.version>
    <maven-compiler-plugin.version>3.5.1</maven-compiler-plugin.version>
    <maven-shade-plugin.version>2.4.3</maven-shade-plugin.version>
    <maven-surefire-plugin.version>2.21.0</maven-surefire-plugin.version>
    <exec-maven-plugin.version>1.5.0</exec-maven-plugin.version>
    <vertx.version>3.5.4</vertx.version>
    ...
</properties>

<dependencyManagement>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>io.vertx</groupId>
            <artifactId>vertx-stack-depchain</artifactId>
            <version>${vertx.version}</version>
            <type>pom</type>
            <scope>import</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>

<dependencies>
    ...
</dependencies>

<build>
    <pluginManagement>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>3.5.1</version>
                <configuration>
                    <source>1.8</source>
                    <target>1.8</target>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </pluginManagement>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-shade-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>${maven-shade-plugin.version}</version>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <phase>package</phase>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>shade</goal>
                    </goals>
                    <configuration>
                        <transformers>
                            <transformer       
            implementation="org.apache.maven.plugins.shade.resource.ManifestResourceTransformer">
                            <manifestEntries>
                                <Main-Class>io.vertx.core.Launcher</Main-Class>
                                <Main-Verticle>${main.verticle}</Main-Verticle>
                            </manifestEntries>
                            </transformer>
                            <transformer  
            implementation="org.apache.maven.plugins.shade.resource.AppendingTransformer">
                                <resource>
                                    META-INF/services/io.vertx.core.spi.VerticleFactory
                                </resource>
                            </transformer>
                        </transformers>
                        <outputFile>
                    ${project.build.directory}/${project.artifactId}-${project.version}-fat.jar
                        </outputFile>
                    </configuration>
                </execution>
            </executions>
        </plugin>
        ...
    </plugins>
</build>
</project>

After that, as usual, you will be able to build and package your application with the following command:

$ mvn clean package