How to debug a maven goal with intellij idea?

Question

Can you debug a maven goal with Intellij IDEA? I know that I can right-click and run Debug. However, the maven plugin does not appear in my External Libraries list, so I can not go into the code and set a breakpoint. Thus, Debug runs through the goals without stopping, like Run does.

I am using OS X 10.8 and IDEA 12.0.2.

EDIT: Goal

I've written custom specRunner for https://github.com/searls/jasmine-maven-plugin - However, $specs$ stays empty. So I try to see which files are actually loaded.

Answer 1

Figured it out:

• from the command line, run maven goal with mvnDebug instead of mvn. E.g. mvnDebug clean
• Open the source of the maven plugin you want to debug in intelliJ and set a breakPoint
• In IDEA, add a Remote JVM Debug Configuration.
  1. Under Settings set:
     • Transport: Socket
     • Debugger Mode: Attach
     • Host: localhost
     • Port: 8000 (default port of mvnDebug)

4. Run the Configuration in Debug mode. It should connect to the waiting mvnDebug jvm.