XML error validating .xml against .xsd file

each time I run my app engine application in the devserver locally the appengine-application.xml file seems to be automatically re-generating. Each time it reverts back to a version with a simple syntax error.

Question: where is the file regenerated/copied from? How do I edit it and cause the changes to persist?

There is an opening < missing at the beginning of this file. I have done the following to attempt to edit and save the file:

used terminal commands vi- vim- and nano as an admin and a root user to edit the file. I also used xcode and a plain text editor to edit and save, also with no success.

here is the file with the error, appengine-application.xml ( missing and oppening '<' before '?xml version="1.0 encoding=...').

file path:../guestbook/guestbook-ear/target/guestbook-ear-1.0-SNAPSHOT/META-INF/appengine-application.xml

?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no"?>
<appengine-application xmlns="http://ift.tt/Uz97W6">
<application>single-loop-665 </application>
</appengine-application>

here is the appengine-application.xsd

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xs:schema attributeFormDefault="unqualified" elementFormDefault="qualified"     targetNamespace="http://ift.tt/Uz97W6" xmlns:xs="http://ift.tt/tphNwY">
<xs:element name="appengine-application" type="ns:appengine-applicationType" xmlns:ns="http://ift.tt/Uz97W6"/>
 <xs:complexType name="appengine-applicationType">
    <xs:all>
        <xs:element type="xs:string" name="application"/>
    </xs:all>
</xs:complexType>
</xs:schema>