# MAVEN: Lifecycles

This tutorial explains what a Lifecycle is in Maven.

A lifecycle in Maven defines the order of execution for some phases. Each phase represents a specific step in the build process and has its own set of goals to be executed.

There are three built-in build lifecycles:

• clean : This lifecycle has 3 phases:
  • pre-clean: can be used for any tasks required prior to clean up
  • clean: generally deletes the files from the "target" directory
  • post-clean: can be used for tasks following the cleanup

• default : This lifecycle has the following phases (but not limited to):

  • validate: Validate if the project is correct and all necessary information is available.
  • compile: Compile the source code of the project.
  • test: Test the compiled source code using a suitable unit testing framework. These tests should not require the code be packaged or deployed.
  • package: Take the compiled code and package it in its distributable format, such as a JAR.
  • verify: Run any checks on results of integration tests to ensure quality criteria are met
  • install: Install the package into the local repository, for use as a dependency in other projects locally
  • deploy: Done in the build environment, copies the final package to the remote repository for sharing with other developers and projects.

• site : This lifecycle has the following phases:

  • pre-site: execute processes needed prior to the actual project site generation
  • site: generate the project's site documentation
  • post-site: execute processes needed to finalize the site generation, and to prepare for site deployment
  • site-deploy: deploy the generated site documentation to the specified web server