Maven POM Query Patterns

<when_to_use>

Load this skill when querying any pom.xml file — extracting dependency versions, filtering by groupId or scope, mapping module hierarchy from parent POMs, or detecting version conflicts across a multi-module Java project.

</when_to_use>

Domain skill for querying Maven POM XML files using dasel v3. Always pass -i xml explicitly. Child element text content (groupId, artifactId, version, scope) is accessed by element name directly — no #text needed. Write intermediate batch results to /tmp/, never to the source tree.

Dependency Extraction

# All dependency groupIds from a single POM
cat pom.xml | dasel -i xml 'project.dependencies.dependency.map(groupId)'

Framework Version Filtering

Filter dependencies by groupId to isolate framework-specific versions.

# Spring dependency versions
cat pom.xml | dasel -i xml 'project.dependencies.dependency.filter(groupId == "org.springframework").map(version)'

# Hibernate dependency versions
cat pom.xml | dasel -i xml 'project.dependencies.dependency.filter(groupId == "org.hibernate").map(version)'

Scope Filtering

# Test-scoped dependency artifactIds
cat pom.xml | dasel -i xml 'project.dependencies.dependency.filter(scope == "test").map(artifactId)'

# Compile-scoped dependencies (no scope element defaults to compile)
cat pom.xml | dasel -i xml 'project.dependencies.dependency.filter(scope == "compile").map(artifactId)'

Module Hierarchy

Extract module paths from a parent POM to map the project structure.

# Module list from parent POM
cat pom.xml | dasel -i xml 'project.modules.module'

Cross-POM Version Conflict Detection

Batch pattern — iterate all POMs, extract dependencies per file, compare. Write results to /tmp/.

# Collect all dependency groupIds across every POM in the hierarchy
for pom in $(fdfind -e xml -n pom.xml .); do
  echo "=== $pom ===" >> /tmp/all_deps.txt
  cat "$pom" | dasel -i xml 'project.dependencies.dependency.map(groupId)' >> /tmp/all_deps.txt 2>/dev/null
done

Inspect /tmp/all_deps.txt for the same groupId appearing with different versions across modules.

Multi-Field Extraction

Extract groupId and artifactId together for dependency inventory.

# Dependency coordinates (groupId + artifactId) — run as two passes
cat pom.xml | dasel -i xml 'project.dependencies.dependency.map(groupId)'
cat pom.xml | dasel -i xml 'project.dependencies.dependency.map(artifactId)'

DependencyManagement vs Dependencies

Enterprise POMs use dependencyManagement to declare BOM-controlled versions separately from active dependencies.

# Managed dependency versions (BOM section)
cat pom.xml | dasel -i xml 'project.dependencyManagement.dependencies.dependency.map(version)'

# Active dependency versions (may be empty if version comes from BOM)
cat pom.xml | dasel -i xml 'project.dependencies.dependency.map(version)'