Your First AEM Maven Project — Built the Right Way

Everything you need to generate, understand, and deploy a clean AEM Maven project from scratch.

Jul 03, 2026

If you have been following the AEM Complete Tutorial Series, you now have AEM running locally with WKND installed.

That was someone else’s project.

This week we build our own.

In Video 3 we create a brand new AEM Maven project from scratch using the AEM Project Archetype. No shortcuts. No bloated sample code. A clean, production-ready project structure you actually understand.

What we cover in this video

Prerequisites — Java 21, Maven 3.8+, Node.js 18+
What settings.xml is and why every AEM developer needs it
What Maven is — explained without jargon
Generating the project with AEM Project Archetype 49
Every module in the folder structure and what it does
The parent pom.xml — the brain of the build
Every deploy command you will use as an AEM developer
How to verify your deployment in AEM

The six modules you will work with every day

core
Java code — Sling Models, services, servlets

ui.frontend
CSS and JS source, built with webpack

ui.apps
AEM components, HTL templates, client libraries

ui.content
Pages, editable templates, /conf configurations

ui.config
OSGi configurations per run mode

dispatcher
Apache vhosts, rewrites, cache and filter rules

The deploy commands — save these

# Full build — start of day
mvn clean install -PautoInstallPackage

# Java bundle only — fastest, use while developing
cd core && mvn clean install -PautoInstallBundle

# Single package — components, config changes
cd ui.apps && mvn clean install -PautoInstallPackage

# Deploy to Publish
mvn clean install -PautoInstallPackagePublish

Maven archetype command — single line, copy and run

mvn -B org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-archetype-plugin:3.2.1:generate -D archetypeGroupId=com.adobe.aem -D archetypeArtifactId=aem-project-archetype -D archetypeVersion=49 -D appTitle="AEM Insider Site" -D appId="aeminsider" -D groupId="com.aeminsider" -D artifactId="aeminsider-site" -D aemVersion="cloud" -D includeExamples=n -D includeFrontendModule=general

Resources from this video

settings.xml file →

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<settings xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0" 
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/settings-1.0.0.xsd">
    <pluginGroups></pluginGroups>
    <proxies></proxies>
    <servers></servers>
    <mirrors>
	 <mirror>
            <id>central-mirror</id>
            <url>https://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2</url>
            <mirrorOf>central</mirrorOf>
        </mirror>
    </mirrors>
    <profiles>
        <!-- ====================================================== -->
        <!-- A D O B E   P U B L I C   P R O F I L E                -->
        <!-- ====================================================== -->
        <profile>
            <id>adobe-public</id>
            <activation>
                <activeByDefault>true</activeByDefault>
            </activation>
            <properties>
                <releaseRepository-Id>adobe-public-releases</releaseRepository-Id>
                <releaseRepository-Name>Adobe Public Releases</releaseRepository-Name>
                <releaseRepository-URL>https://repo.adobe.com/nexus/content/groups/public</releaseRepository-URL>
            </properties>
            <repositories>
                <repository>
                    <id>adobe-public-releases</id>
                    <name>Adobe Public Repository</name>
                    <url>https://repo.adobe.com/nexus/content/groups/public</url>
                    <releases>
                        <enabled>true</enabled>
                        <updatePolicy>never</updatePolicy>
                    </releases>
                    <snapshots>
                        <enabled>false</enabled>
                    </snapshots>
                </repository>
            </repositories>
            <pluginRepositories>
                <pluginRepository>
                    <id>adobe-public-releases</id>
                    <name>Adobe Public Repository</name>
                    <url>https://repo.adobe.com/nexus/content/groups/public</url>
                    <releases>
                        <enabled>true</enabled>
                        <updatePolicy>never</updatePolicy>
                    </releases>
                    <snapshots>
                        <enabled>false</enabled>
                    </snapshots>
                </pluginRepository>
            </pluginRepositories>
        </profile>
    </profiles>
    <activeProfiles>
        <activeProfile>adobe-public</activeProfile>
    </activeProfiles>
</settings>

AEM Project Archetype on GitHub → https://github.com/adobe/aem-project-archetype
Maven official download → https://maven.apache.org/download.cgi
Maven install guide → https://medium.com/@zorozeri/install-maven-by-setting-up-maven-home-abb4d158fcc6

Watch the full video

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