Maven or Gradle dependency resolution failure

April 30, 2026 · View on GitHub

Playbook ID: maven-dependency-resolution Category: build Severity: high Tags: java, maven, gradle, dependencies, repository

What this failure means

The Java build could not resolve one or more dependencies or plugins from the configured artifact repositories.

Common log signals

could not find artifact
failed to read artifact descriptor
PluginResolutionException
pluginresolutionexception
transfer failed for
sbt.ResolveException
unresolved dependency:
module.*was not found

Diagnosis

The Java build could not resolve one or more dependencies or plugins from the configured artifact repositories.

Fix steps

  1. Verify the artifact coordinates and version in pom.xml, build.gradle, or version catalogs.
  2. Check repository credentials in Maven settings or Gradle properties if the dependency is private.
  3. Re-run the build with dependency refresh enabled, for example mvn -U package or ./gradlew --refresh-dependencies build.
  4. Confirm the repository URL is reachable from the CI runner.

Validation

  • Re-run the failing workflow step.
  • Confirm the original dependency resolution error is gone.

Likely files to inspect

  • pom.xml
  • settings.xml
  • build.gradle
  • build.gradle.kts

Run Faultline

faultline analyze build.log
faultline explain maven-dependency-resolution
faultline workflow build.log --json --mode agent

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Generated from playbooks/bundled/log/build/maven-dependency-resolution.yaml. Do not edit directly — run make docs-generate.