How does dependency installation and project configuration occur in Maven?

In Maven, dependencies and project configuration are managed through the pom.xml (Project Object Model) file. This file describes:

• Dependencies: groups, artifacts, and versions of libraries needed for the project.
• Plugins: tools for building, testing, and packaging.
• Project settings: Java version, project information, repositories.

Example of a dependency in pom.xml:

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
        <version>5.3.20</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

When running the command mvn install, Maven downloads all specified dependencies from central repositories and builds the project according to the configuration.