Some time ago, the Archetype plugin lost the ability to "package" non-Java resources. The change was committed in April '06, so it would have first appeared in 1.0-alpha-4. http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/maven-commits/200604.mbox/%3C20060403072414.51468.qmail@minotaur.apache.org%3E Prior to this change, you could put non-Java files in the <sources> element, for example <source>src/main/resources/App.properties</source> and mvn archetype:create ... -DgroupId=com.example would result in src/main/resources/com/example/App.properties Now, you get an error saying: "Template 'App.properties' is not in directory src/main/java." One way to fix this is to roll back the changes from lines 682-705 in r390971: http://svn.apache.org/viewvc/maven/archetype/trunk/maven-archetype/maven-archetype-core/src/main/java/org/apache/maven/archetype/DefaultArchetype.java?r1=390965&r2=390971&diff_format=h However if I'm reading the changes right, that will break the ability to have "sub packages". Maybe we need to leave <sources> alone, and have both <resources> and <packagedResources> ? There is an example project (based on the quickstart archetype) in the sandbox. It includes App.properties as described above. http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/maven/sandbox/trunk/archetype/maven-archetype-quickstart/