A minimal maven pom.xml

minimal-maven-pom.xml

<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>

    <groupId>gd.wa</groupId>
    <artifactId>minimal-pom</artifactId>
    <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>jar</packaging>

    <name>minimal-pom</name>
    <url>http://maven.apache.org</url>

    <properties>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
        <java.version>1.8</java.version>
    </properties>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>3.1</version>
                <configuration>
                    <source>${java.version}</source>
                    <target>${java.version}</target>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>junit</groupId>
            <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
            <version>4.11</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</project>

This is the correct minimum.

@jp26jp, this is not the minimum, it is a minimal template. its not really a contest, either :D

I'd say the working minimal would be:

<project>
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <groupId>g</groupId>
    <artifactId>a</artifactId>
    <version>0</version>
</project>

It works with maven version 3.6.3.

Why? This could be useful for populating a docker layer in a Dockerfile builder:

FROM maven
RUN echo '<project><modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>'\
  '<groupId>g</groupId><artifactId>a</artifactId><version>0</version></project>' > pom.xml \
  && ./mvnw verify clean   # common for all maven projects
COPY pom.xml . 
RUN ./mvnw verify clean  #  project specific dependencies & plugins cached until project's pom.xml changes
COPY . .
RUN ./mvnw verify # run everytime anything changes

This is not the smallest pom.xml you can create. Its a pretty small useful starting point. Trim at will!