This happens when for a dependency the scope is

• set to 'provided' and
• a parameter (in the case ${jbpm.version}) is used in the version field.

So the relevant entry in the pom is:

<dependency>
<groupId>org.drools</groupId>
<artifactId>drools-core</artifactId>
<version>${drools.version}</version>
<scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>

which leads to

11:15:02,584 WARN Dependency artifact not found for: org.jbpm:jbpm-bpmn2:${jbpm.version}

and then the NPE. I'm guessing the parameter is not being resolved.

1. it probably should resolve parameters
2. if a dependency is scoped as 'provided' I think it is supposed to locate it on the classpath and NOT from maven. However I'm not sure this is the way that works in testing anyway.
3. if the dependency cannot be found it should probably stop and not even proceed rather then warn?
4. it should be interesting to see why it gets the NPE.

If you change the dependency from 'provided' to 'test' things work fine.