In the test lib, we have an ArtifactResolver which is used by tests that need external resources. Internally at Oracle we hook Jib into this to provide such dependencies. For other users, it's possible to specify the path to such a dependency using a system property.

If something goes wrong while resolving the dependencies, the ArtifactResolver currently swallows the exception and falls back on the default property based resolver, making it hard to figure out the problem.

If the user provided the environment for calling Jib, I don't think we should try to revert to the default resolver on exception, but instead the exception should be propagated to the test.