How to run tagged tests that are explicitly excluded in pom.xml?

This is part of my pom.xml:

<plugin>
  <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>3.5.3</version>
  <configuration>
    <excludedGroups>slow</excludedGroups>
  </configuration>
</plugin>

I want my @Tag("slow") JUnit5 tests to be disabled by default. It works. Now, I want to enable these tests in command line. I do this:

mvn test -DexcludedGroups=

No effect. They still are not running.

As you noted, Maven Surefire Plugin allows you exclude groups using the excludedGroups property. Instead of hard-coding it in the plugin's configuration, you can give the property itself a default value, and then override it from the command line.

i.e., the relevant parts of your pom.xml should look like this:

<project>
    <properties>
        <!-- Default excludedGroups value -->
        <excludedGroups>slow</excludedGroups>
    </properties>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>3.5.3</version>
                <!-- Don't specify excludedGroups here! -->
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project> 

That way, if you just run the tests, the property will be applied:

➜  mvn test
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO] 
[INFO] -----------------------< org.example:samplejava >-----------------------
[INFO] Building samplejava 1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO]   from pom.xml
[INFO] --------------------------------[ jar ]---------------------------------
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- resources:3.3.1:resources (default-resources) @ samplejava ---
[INFO] Copying 0 resource from src/main/resources to target/classes
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- compiler:3.13.0:compile (default-compile) @ samplejava ---
[INFO] Nothing to compile - all classes are up to date.
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- resources:3.3.1:testResources (default-testResources) @ samplejava ---
[INFO] skip non existing resourceDirectory /Users/mureinik/src/untracked/samplejava/src/test/resources
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- compiler:3.13.0:testCompile (default-testCompile) @ samplejava ---
[INFO] Nothing to compile - all classes are up to date.
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- surefire:3.5.3:test (default-test) @ samplejava ---
[INFO] Using auto detected provider org.apache.maven.surefire.junitplatform.JUnitPlatformProvider
[INFO] 
[INFO] -------------------------------------------------------
[INFO]  T E S T S
[INFO] -------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] 
[INFO] Results:
[INFO] 
[INFO] Tests run: 0, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0
[INFO] 
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time:  0.684 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2025-06-17T12:03:17+03:00
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

But you can override the property with a -D flag:

➜  mvn test -DexcludedGroups=
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO] 
[INFO] -----------------------< org.example:samplejava >-----------------------
[INFO] Building samplejava 1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO]   from pom.xml
[INFO] --------------------------------[ jar ]---------------------------------
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- resources:3.3.1:resources (default-resources) @ samplejava ---
[INFO] Copying 0 resource from src/main/resources to target/classes
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- compiler:3.13.0:compile (default-compile) @ samplejava ---
[INFO] Nothing to compile - all classes are up to date.
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- resources:3.3.1:testResources (default-testResources) @ samplejava ---
[INFO] skip non existing resourceDirectory /Users/mureinik/src/untracked/samplejava/src/test/resources
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- compiler:3.13.0:testCompile (default-testCompile) @ samplejava ---
[INFO] Nothing to compile - all classes are up to date.
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- surefire:3.5.3:test (default-test) @ samplejava ---
[INFO] Using auto detected provider org.apache.maven.surefire.junitplatform.JUnitPlatformProvider
[INFO] 
[INFO] -------------------------------------------------------
[INFO]  T E S T S
[INFO] -------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Running org.example.MySlowTest
[INFO] Tests run: 1, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0, Time elapsed: 0.015 s -- in org.example.MySlowTest
[INFO] 
[INFO] Results:
[INFO] 
[INFO] Tests run: 1, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0
[INFO] 
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time:  0.706 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2025-06-17T12:04:18+03:00
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------