If 'mvn' isn't found on PATH and no 'mvnw', use Eclipse m2e's mvn to generate wrapper and use that:

This raises the question of how the precedence would change.

Our current precedence is hard-coded:

1. mvnw
2. Liberty Tools preference executable
3. 'mvn' on PATH

I think the most straightforward change would look like:

1. mvnw
2. Liberty Tools preference executable
3. Generate 'mvnw' from embedded Maven and use it (in subsequent executions we'll be in case 1. then)

Looking back at the design here, if I'd known this is where we'd end up I might have rather said: "we can always use mvnw, so if you configure an executable in LT preference you must really want to use it, so make this the first preference rather than a failover choice".

Not sure it's entirely too late to make such a change, but viewing this more conservatively, we could go with the straightforward change, and, if we get any feedback along the above lines, we could add a new preference: "prefer Maven executable", and leave it off/unchecked by default.

(See: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-maven?tab=readme-ov-file#settings for the VSCode analogue here, which maps a bit more to what I'm saying we might have done.)

ALSO

What about Gradle?