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By default, an archetype cannot run on a project that already exists. However, it's possible to allow an archetype to run on a pre-existing project by adding an allowPartial element set to true in your archetype's archetype.xml file.

As an example, here is an archetype project called "maven-archetype-bacon-and-eggs":

The "maven-archetype-bacon-and-eggs" project's archetype.xml file is shown here. Notice that it contains an allowPartial element set to true. It also specifies two resources for the archetype, a bacon.txt file and an eggs.txt file.

archetype.xml

<archetype>
	<id>maven-archetype-bacon-and-eggs</id>
	<allowPartial>true</allowPartial>
	<resources>
		<resource>src/main/resources/bacon.txt</resource>
		<resource>src/main/resources/eggs.txt</resource>
	</resources>
</archetype>

This archetype project has a regular pom.xml file, included here for reference:

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/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
  <groupId>com.myarchetype</groupId>
  <artifactId>maven-archetype-bacon-and-eggs</artifactId>
  <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
  <name>Archetype - maven-archetype-bacon-and-eggs</name>
  <url>http://maven.apache.org</url>
</project>

I'll build and install the archetype in my local mavenSW repository via "mvn clean install".

Console output for 'mvn clean install' on 'maven-archetype-bacon-and-eggs' project

[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Building Archetype - maven-archetype-bacon-and-eggs
[INFO]    task-segment: [clean, install]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] [clean:clean]
[INFO] Deleting directory C:\dev\workspace\maven-archetype-bacon-and-eggs\target
[INFO] [resources:resources]
[INFO] Using default encoding to copy filtered resources.
[INFO] [compiler:compile]
[INFO] No sources to compile
[INFO] [resources:testResources]
[INFO] Using default encoding to copy filtered resources.
[INFO] [compiler:testCompile]
[INFO] No sources to compile
[INFO] [surefire:test]
[INFO] No tests to run.
[INFO] [jar:jar]
[INFO] Building jar: C:\dev\workspace\maven-archetype-bacon-and-eggs\target\maven-archetype-bacon-and-eggs-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar
[INFO] [install:install]
[INFO] Installing C:\dev\workspace\maven-archetype-bacon-and-eggs\target\maven-archetype-bacon-and-eggs-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar to \dev\m2repo\com\myarchetype\maven-archetype-bacon-and-eggs\1.0-SNAPSHOT\maven-archetype-bacon-and-eggs-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESSFUL
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 2 seconds
[INFO] Finished at: Wed Feb 20 18:47:28 PST 2008
[INFO] Final Memory: 7M/13M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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