AddJaxwsRuntime recipe injects legacy JAX-WS 2.3 runtime on JAX-WS 4.0 / Jakarta projects, causing a dependency resolution conflict

Start with the AddJaxwsRuntime recipe in the wsee package, which adds com.sun.xml.ws:jaxws-rt:2.3.7 with provided scope when JAX-WS or JAXB usages are found. Reproduce with a project that imports jakarta.xml.ws and jakarta.xml.soap and check the effective POM before and after the recipe runs. Done means the recipe either skips when Jakarta 4.x APIs are already declared or injects a compatible runtime, and the project compiles. The maintainers have not yet chosen between the two options in the issue.

TL;DR The change results in a compile error

With 6.21.0 no changes were made. It was noticed with 6.49.0 and also exist in 6.50. Hence in the past I didn't need aan tag. Did some digging and got the AIto summarize the findings. See below.

Describe the bug
The org.openrewrite.java.migrate.wsee.AddJaxwsRuntime recipe injects the JAX-WS 2.3 runtime (com.sun.xml.ws:jaxws-rt:2.3.7) with provided scope when JAX-WS or JAXB API usages are detected.

While this recipe is intended to provide a JAX-WS runtime for environments running on Java 11+ (where JAX-WS was removed from the JDK), it introduces a dependency resolution conflict on modern projects that have already migrated to
JAX-WS 4.0 / Jakarta EE 9+ (e.g., Micronaut 4.x applications utilizing the jakarta.xml.ws.* namespace).

Comparing the Maven Effective POM before and after the recipe's modification reveals that injecting jaxws-rt:2.3.7 transitively pulls in legacy javax-based API jars under the jakarta GroupID (specifically
jakarta.xml.ws:jakarta.xml.ws-api:2.3.3 and jakarta.xml.soap:jakarta.xml.soap-api:1.4.2).

Because these legacy dependencies are introduced as transitive dependencies of a direct provided scope dependency (jaxws-rt:2.3.7), Maven's dependency resolution prioritizes them over the project's modern, compile-scope
jakarta.xml.ws-api:4.0.1 and jakarta.xml.soap-api:3.0.1 API jars. This downgrades the API jars to versions that lack the jakarta.* packages, resulting in compilation failures for hand-written source files that import jakarta.xml.ws.*
or jakarta.xml.soap.*.

The Technical Mechanism (Verified via Effective POM comparison)

A detailed comparison of the Maven Effective POM configurations (mvn help:effective-pom) before and after applying the recipe demonstrates the dependency resolution conflict:

1. Before the recipe (effective-without.xml):
   The project is running on Micronaut 4.x / Java 21, and successfully resolves the modern Jakarta XML Web Services 4.0 API:

1
2 jakarta.xml.ws
3 jakarta.xml.ws-api
4 4.0.1
5 compile
6
All source files import jakarta.xml.ws.* and jakarta.xml.soap.* and compile successfully as a compatible runtime (e.g., Apache CXF 4.x) is transitively present.

2. After the recipe (effective-with.xml):
   The recipe injects com.sun.xml.ws:jaxws-rt:2.3.7 (implementing JAX-WS 2.3).
   This runtime transitively depends on legacy API jars:

   • jakarta.xml.ws:jakarta.xml.ws-api:2.3.3 (containing the legacy javax. namespace)*
   • jakarta.xml.soap:jakarta.xml.soap-api:1.4.2 (containing the legacy javax. namespace)*

   Maven's dependency resolution prioritizes these transitive paths under the provided scope, downgrading the compile-scope jakarta.xml.ws-api:4.0.1 and jakarta.xml.soap-api:3.0.1 API jars.

3. Compilation Impact:
   Because the legacy 2.3.3 and 1.4.2 API jars do not contain the jakarta namespace classes, the jakarta packages are no longer present on the compile classpath, causing compilation to fail.

Compiler Failure Output

1 [ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-compiler-plugin:3.16.0:compile (default-compile) on project sirivm-swarco-source: Compilation failure:
2 [ERROR] /src/main/java/.../SwarcoSiriVmXmlDecoderActor.java: package jakarta.xml.soap does not exist
3 [ERROR] /src/main/java/.../SwarcoSiriVmXmlDecoderActor.java: cannot find symbol: class SOAPMessage
4 [ERROR] /src/main/java/.../SwarcoSubscriberActor.java: package jakarta.xml.ws does not exist
5 [ERROR] /src/main/java/.../SwarcoSubscriberActor.java: cannot find symbol: class Holder

Suggested Resolution
The AddJaxwsRuntime recipe could benefit from namespace awareness and check for existing JAX-WS 4.x / JAXB 4.x declarations:

1. Check existing API namespace: The recipe could check if jakarta.xml.ws-api (version 4.x+) is already declared and resolved, and skip execution if found.
2. Compatible Runtime Injection: If a runtime must be added, the recipe should detect the active namespace. If jakarta.* is used, it should inject a compatible Jakarta XML Web Services 4.0 runtime (such as
   com.sun.xml.ws:jaxws-rt:4.0.x) instead of the legacy javax-based 2.3.7 version.

Environment

• OpenRewrite Maven Plugin: 6.49.0
• Active Recipes: org.openrewrite.java.migrate.wsee.AddJaxwsRuntime
• Framework: Micronaut 4.x (latest iirc)
• Java Version: 21
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