After discussion in #maven, it seemed that this plugin could be of use by the general population. It manages the buildnumber for a specific project, and even can produce an (optional) buildclass. example setup. <plugin> <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId> <artifactId>maven-buildinfo-plugin</artifactId> <version>1.0-alpha-1-SNAPSHOT</version> <configuration> <infofile>.buildinfo</infofile> <classname>org.codehaus.modello.plugins.dom4j.BuildInfo</classname> </configuration> <executions> <execution> <goals> <goal>buildnumber</goal> <goal>buildclass</goal> </goals> </execution> </executions> </plugin>