jdepend search for its jdepend.properties through classloader, so it is good idea to add ${maven.build.dest} to classpath, to enable setting properties per project. You can then add <preGoal name="maven-jdepend-plugin:report"> <copy failonerror="false" file="jdepend.properties" tofile="${maven.build.dest}/jdepend.properties"/> </preGoal> and you no longer have to have jdepend.properties in your home directory. Patch: — src/plugins-build/jdepend/plugin.jelly.orig Tue Jul 29 14:08:49 2003 +++ src/plugins-build/jdepend/plugin.jelly Tue Jul 29 14:09:10 2003 @@ -42,6 +42,7 @@ <ant:path refid="maven-classpath"/> <ant:path refid="maven.dependency.classpath"/> <ant:pathelement path="${plugin.getDependencyPath('jdepend')}"/> + <ant:pathelement path="${maven.build.dest}"/> </ant:classpath> </ant:java>