The dependency matrix information for provided scopes and dynamically acquired components can be a bit confusing. It was for me, since it appeared to me that I got all the required items by direct or transitive dependency, but then remote resolution didn't work.
I wanted to jump to Maven 3.3.3 (latest as of 2015-05-25). I got it working without the sisu errors that presented when I tried to optimistically update to current versions of things specified here (and elsewhere). This is a project with a tag that worked with the example specified as of today using JDK8.
https://github.com/mykelalvis/test-maven-embedder/tree/20150525-working
Relevant deps (SLF4J is just so I can see the logs)
<dependency>
<groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
<artifactId>slf4j-simple</artifactId>
<version>1.7.5</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.maven</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-embedder</artifactId>
<version>3.3.3</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.eclipse.aether</groupId>
<artifactId>aether-connector-basic</artifactId>
<version>1.0.2.v20150114</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.eclipse.aether</groupId>
<artifactId>aether-transport-wagon</artifactId>
<version>1.0.2.v20150114</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.wagon</groupId>
<artifactId>wagon-http</artifactId>
<version>2.9</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.wagon</groupId>
<artifactId>wagon-provider-api</artifactId>
<version>2.9</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.wagon</groupId>
<artifactId>wagon-http-lightweight</artifactId>
<version>2.9</version>
</dependency>
Running this is:
rm -r ~/.m2/repository/org/apache/maven/plugins/maven-clean-plugin/
mvn exec:java
Probably should have made it a unit test of some sort.
If someone has a superior solution for embedded Maven 3.3.3 (i.e. came up with a smaller or more range-oriented set of required dependencies), please post them.