How does validate phase does it’s action in maven where it does not have a plugin associated with it?

I posted question regarding maven before also. I have a new doubt. when I try to check the plugins for each phase of default maven build lifecycle I saw there is not plugin for validate phase or process sources. Why it is like that? I knew each phase does a task and to do a task in maven you must need a plugin.

Here is the link for all the plugins for default life cycle.

Answer

The empty phases are meant to be used by other plugins that you might or might not add to your POM.

If you e.g. want to generate source code with some maven plugin, you would bind it to the generate-sources phase.