Where should a dependency version be defined so that all projects inheriting the BOM share the same version?

• A. in dependencyManagement in the BOM parent pom file
• B. in a separate properties module
• C. in the child pom files directly
• D. in the dependency's transitive POM

Answer: (A)

Centralize versions where the build can apply them automatically: define the dependency versions in the dependencyManagement section of the BOM’s parent POM. This creates a single source of truth for versions that will be applied to all projects that import or inherit the BOM. When a child project declares a dependency without specifying a version, Maven will resolve the version from the BOM’s dependencyManagement, ensuring consistency across all inheriting projects.

Example in the BOM:

dependencyManagement

dependencies

dependency

groupId: org.example

artifactId: my-lib

version: 1.2.3

Then a child can simply declare the dependency without a version:

dependency

groupId: org.example

artifactId: my-lib

Defining versions in a separate properties module or in each child POM would dilute this consistency, and placing versions in a transitive POM wouldn’t provide a centralized, shared version baseline across multiple projects.