diff --git a/maven-plugin-api/src/main/mdo/lifecycle.mdo b/maven-plugin-api/src/main/mdo/lifecycle.mdo
index 2d8f2da8db..2335d15c29 100644
--- a/maven-plugin-api/src/main/mdo/lifecycle.mdo
+++ b/maven-plugin-api/src/main/mdo/lifecycle.mdo
@@ -24,7 +24,8 @@ under the License.
   <id>lifecycle-mappings</id>
   <name>LifecycleMappings</name>
   <description><![CDATA[
-    Configuration of custom lifecycle mappings for the plugin.
+    Configuration of custom lifecycle mappings for the plugin, as generally stored in
+    <code>META-INF/maven/lifecycle.xml</code> in a plugin's jar artifact.
   ]]></description>
   <defaults>
     <default>
@@ -36,7 +37,7 @@ under the License.
     <class rootElement="true" xml.tagName="lifecycles" xsd.compositor="sequence">
       <name>LifecycleConfiguration</name>
       <version>1.0.0</version>
-      <description>Root element of the lifecycle.xml file.</description>
+      <description><![CDATA[Root element of the <code>lifecycle.xml</code> file.]]></description>
       <fields>
         <field>
           <name>lifecycles</name>
diff --git a/maven-plugin-api/src/site/site.xml b/maven-plugin-api/src/site/site.xml
index daf5e41f00..85de2410c9 100644
--- a/maven-plugin-api/src/site/site.xml
+++ b/maven-plugin-api/src/site/site.xml
@@ -1,7 +1,31 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+
+<!--
+  Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+  or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+  distributed with this work for additional information
+  regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+  to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+  "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+  with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+
+    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
+  software distributed under the License is distributed on an
+  "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
+  KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
+  specific language governing permissions and limitations
+  under the License.
+-->
+
 <project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/DECORATION/1.0.0"
   xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
   xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/DECORATION/1.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/decoration-1.0.0.xsd">
   <body>
+    <menu name="Reference">
+      <item name="lifecycle.xml" href="lifecycle-mappings.html"/>
+    </menu>
     <menu ref="parent"/>
     <menu ref="reports"/>
   </body>
