If you add the following to you project.xml file, it will include the required deps to run this goal- at least it did for me :) <dependency> <groupId>xdoclet</groupId> <artifactId>xjavadoc</artifactId> <version>1.0.2</version> <url>http://xdoclet.sourceforge.net</url> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>xdoclet</groupId> <artifactId>xdoclet-hibernate-module</artifactId> <version>1.2</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>xdoclet</groupId> <artifactId>maven-xdoclet-plugin</artifactId> <version>1.2</version> <type>plugin</type> </dependency>