The archetype plugin can operate in the batch mode either by setting the interactiveMode argument to false or passing -B as an argument. When operating in the batch mode, you need to clearly specify which archetype you are going to use with the arguments: archetypeGroupId, archetypeArtifactId, and archetypeVersion. Also, you need to clearly identify the resultant artifact with the groupId, artifactId, version, and package arguments, as follows:

$ mvn archetype:generate -B
                     -DarchetypeGroupId=org.apache.maven.archetypes
                     -DarchetypeArtifactId=maven-archetype-quickstart
                     -DarchetypeVersion=1.0 
                     -DgroupId=com.packt.samples  
                     -DartifactId=com.packt.samples.archetype 
                     -Dversion=1.0.0 
                     -Dpackage=com.packt.samples.archetype

Any inquisitive mind should be having a very valid question by now.

In the non-interactive mode, we did not type any filter or provide any Maven coordinates for the archetype in the very first example. So, how does the plugin know about the archetype? When no archetype is specified, the plugin goes with the default one, which is org.apache.maven.archetypes:maven-archetype-quickstart.