How to Separate Unit and Integration Tests in Maven and Visualize Coverage with SonarQube

Project structure for separating unit and integration tests

Modify the default Maven layout by adding a dedicated source directory for integration tests ( src/it/java) while keeping the standard unit‑test directory ( src/test/java). The resulting structure is:

FunTester-app
├── pom.xml
├── src
│   ├── it
│   │   └── java
│   ├── main
│   │   └── java
│   └── test
│       └── java

Running unit tests

Unit tests are executed automatically by Maven’s default lifecycle. They must reside in src/test/java and their class names should start or end with Test or TestCase. Maven runs them during the test phase.

Running integration tests

Integration tests are placed in src/it/java. Their class names should start with IT or end with IT or ITCase. By default Maven does not execute them; they require additional plugin configuration.

Adding the integration‑test source directory

Use build-helper-maven-plugin to add src/it/java (and optional resources) to the test classpath:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
    <artifactId>build-helper-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>3.1.0</version>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <goals>
                <goal>add-test-source</goal>
                <goal>add-test-resource</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>
                <sources>
                    <source>src/it/java</source>
                </sources>
                <resources>
                    <resource>
                        <directory>src/it/resources</directory>
                    </resource>
                </resources>
            </configuration>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

Insert this fragment into the <project><build><plugins> section of the root pom.xml.

Configuring the Failsafe plugin for integration tests

Bind the Maven Failsafe plugin to the integration-test and verify goals so that tests in src/it/java run automatically during the integration‑test phase:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-failsafe-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>3.0.0-M4</version>
    <configuration>
        <encoding>${project.build.sourceEncoding}</encoding>
    </configuration>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <goals>
                <goal>integration-test</goal>
                <goal>verify</goal>
            </goals>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

Generating a combined coverage report with JaCoCo

Configure jacoco-maven-plugin to prepare agents for both unit and integration test runs and to produce separate reports that can be merged for SonarQube:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.jacoco</groupId>
    <artifactId>jacoco-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>0.8.5</version>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <goals>
                <goal>prepare-agent</goal>
                <goal>prepare-agent-integration</goal>
                <goal>report</goal>
                <goal>report-integration</goal>
            </goals>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

This configuration ensures that coverage data from unit and integration tests are collected and merged into a single report that SonarQube can consume.

SonarQube visualization

After a successful build, run the Sonar Maven scanner ( mvn sonar:sonar) using the sonar-maven-plugin. Add a Sonar profile to ~/.m2/settings.xml so the scanner knows where to upload the report:

<profile>
    <id>sonar</id>
    <activation>
        <activeByDefault>true</activeByDefault>
    </activation>
    <properties>
        <sonar.host.url>http://localhost:8080</sonar.host.url>
    </properties>
</profile>

When the project is opened in the SonarQube dashboard, the overall coverage metric will reflect the combined results of both unit and integration tests.