Corvoid is a small build tool for Java projects. It implements a limited but useful subset of the Apache Maven POM format. It can resolve and download dependencies then compile and package a project into jar or uberjar file.
Corvoid has no dependencies beyond JDK 7+ and can be packaged as a single 100 KB jar.
See the manpage.
I wrote Corvoid one day when frustrated with Maven's slow startup time and verbose command line interface. I figured that surely the process of resolving dependencies wasn't that complex.
Over time I've added little bits of useful functionality like watching the source tree for changes, showing the sizes of dependencies and reporting on duplicate class files. All of these can be achieved by cobbling together enough Maven plugins, but Corvoid does them out of the box, often faster and with a more discoverable CLI.
Corvoid is a personal tool. It has a number of rough edges but I find it handy. In practice I mix and match Corvoid and Maven using one or the other for particular tasks within the same project.
For easy development, Corvoid can be run directly out of the source checkout.
It requires no dependencies other than a JDK. You can symlink the launch
script somewhere in your $PATH:
ln -s $PWD/bin/corvoid /usr/local/bin
Alternatively you can package it as a jar and create a launch script:
./bin/corvoid jar
cp target/corvoid-*.jar /usr/local/lib
cat > /usr/local/bin/corvoid <<EOF
#!/bin/sh
exec java -cp /usr/local/lib/corvoid-*.jar corvoid.Corvoid "$@"
EOF
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/corvoid
To build and install the manpages (requires a2x from asciidoc):
./doc/install-manpages.sh