The variable substitution in aol.properties doesn't seem to work. Doesn't actually seem to be implemented at all. 1. many sites have calls like this: NarProperties.getInstance(mojo.getMavenProject()).getProperty( ... ) 2. the getInstance() method basically looks in a cache for an existing cached properties object or loads a new one 3. when loading, first tries to find out the file name and then just using a plain java.util.Properties 4. on actual loading, nothing looks at the maven project and does the variable substitution. ergo: variables cannot be used at all in aol.properties - everything needs to be hardcoded.