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Running Rewrite on a Maven project without modifying the build

In this tutorial, we will apply a Rewrite recipe to a source code repository built with Maven without modifying the build itself. The instructions for this differ slightly depending on whether or not the recipe has configuration parameters. Please note that you will need to have Maven installed in order to run the shell commands.

info

It is not possible to pass in configuration parameters from the command-line right now. Our frequently asked questions goes into more detail why not.

Running a recipe without configuration parameters​

If the recipe you're trying to run does not have any required configuration parameters, then you can run the recipe by executing a shell command.

tip

Our recipe documentation includes the specific shell commands to run for any recipe without configuration parameters. You may find it easier to copy and run the provided command instead of manually creating it.

If the recipe comes from the core Rewrite library (such as with Remove Unused Imports) then you can run the following command and replace org.openrewrite.java.RemoveUnusedImports with the path to the recipe you're wanting to run:

mvn -U org.openrewrite.maven:rewrite-maven-plugin:run \
  -Drewrite.activeRecipes=org.openrewrite.java.RemoveUnusedImports

If the recipe comes from a different library (such as with Migrate to Jakarta EE 9) then you can run the following command and replace org.openrewrite.recipe:rewrite-migrate-java:LATEST with the artifact coordinates of your recipe and org.openrewrite.java.migrate.jakarta.JavaxMigrationToJakarta with the path to the recipe you're wanting to run:

mvn -U org.openrewrite.maven:rewrite-maven-plugin:run \
  -Drewrite.recipeArtifactCoordinates=org.openrewrite.recipe:rewrite-migrate-java:LATEST \
  -Drewrite.activeRecipes=org.openrewrite.java.migrate.jakarta.JavaxMigrationToJakarta

Running a recipe with configuration parameters​

If the recipe you're trying to run has configuration parameters, then you will need to:

  1. Create or update a rewrite.yml file in your project root. In there, you will need to create a new recipe that wraps the recipe you want to run and specifies the parameters you want to use.
  2. Run a shell command that executes the new recipe you've defined in step 1.

For instance, if you wanted to run the ChangePackage recipe to change org.old.package.name to org.new.package.name, you would need to create a rewrite.yml file that looks like this:

---
type: specs.openrewrite.org/v1beta/recipe
name: com.yourorg.NameYouDefine
recipeList:
  - org.openrewrite.java.ChangePackage:
      oldPackageName: org.old.package.name
      newPackageName: org.new.package.name

You could then run that recipe by executing the following shell command:

mvn -U org.openrewrite.maven:rewrite-maven-plugin:run \
  -Drewrite.activeRecipes=com.yourorg.NameYouDefine