assembly.xml

<assembly xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-assembly-plugin/assembly/1.1.2"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-assembly-plugin/assembly/1.1.2 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/assembly-1.1.2.xsd">

  <id>packer-is-my-id</id>

  <formats>
    <format>tar.gz</format>
  </formats>

  <includeBaseDirectory>false</includeBaseDirectory>

  <!-- essentially a: tar -czvf packer.tgz * .chef -->
  <fileSets>
    <fileSet>
      <directory>${project.basedir}</directory>
      <outputDirectory>/</outputDirectory>
      <excludes>
        <exclude>/target/**</exclude>
        <exclude>/assembly.xml</exclude>
        <exclude>/pom.xml</exclude>
        <exclude>/.mvn/**</exclude>
        <exclude>/mvnw</exclude>
        <exclude>/mvnw.cmd</exclude>
      </excludes>
    </fileSet>
  </fileSets>
</assembly>