I've attached the project that have three modules: m1 (depends on m2) m2 (depends on m3) m3 (depends on junit) all the dependencies are of the 'compile' scope. I would expect that embedder resolves dependencies for m1 into m2, m3, and junit. But it doesn't do that if repository does not contain these modules installed. The only dependency is the direct one (m2). On the other hand, if I previously install the entire project into repository, I'll have the expected behaviour.