Learn the basics of authoring Gradle by developing the Build Script.

In this section, you will:

  • Understand the Project object

  • Update the Build script

  • Update the Plugin

  • Apply the Plugin

  • Run a task from the Plugin

Step 0. Before you Begin

  1. You initialized your Java app in part 1.

  2. You understand the Gradle Build Lifecycle from part 2.

  3. You added a subproject and a separate Build in part3.

  4. You viewed a Settings file in part 4.

Step 1. The Project object

Build scripts invoke Gradle APIs to configure the build.

During the configuration phase, Gradle finds the build script(s) in the root and subproject directories.

When a build script, build.gradle(.kts), is found, Gradle configures a Project object.

The purpose of the Project object is to create a collection of Task objects, apply plugins, and retrieve dependencies.

You can use any of the methods and properties on the Project interface directly in your script.

For example:

defaultTasks("some-task")      // Delegates to Project.defaultTasks()
reportsDir = file("reports")   // Delegates to Project.file() and the Java Plugin
defaultTasks 'some-task'      // Delegates to Project.defaultTasks()
reportsDir = file('reports')  // Delegates to Project.file() and the Java Plugin

Step 2. The Build script

Let’s break down the build script for the plugin:

gradle/license-plugin/plugin/build.gradle.kts
plugins {                                                             (1)
    `java-gradle-plugin`                                              (2)
    id("org.jetbrains.kotlin.jvm") version "1.9.0"                    (3)
}

repositories {                                                        (4)
    mavenCentral()                                                    (5)
}

dependencies {                                                        (6)
    testImplementation("org.jetbrains.kotlin:kotlin-test-junit5")     (7)
    testRuntimeOnly("org.junit.platform:junit-platform-launcher")
}

gradlePlugin {                                                        (8)
    val greeting by plugins.creating {                                (9)
        id = "license.greeting"
        implementationClass = "license.LicensePlugin"
    }
}

// Additional lines //
1 Use the plugins{} block from KotlinSettingsScript in the Kotlin DSL
2 Apply the Java Gradle plugin development plugin to add support for developing Gradle plugins
3 Apply the Kotlin JVM plugin to add support for Kotlin
4 Use Project.repositories() to configure the repositories for this project
5 Use Maven Central for resolving dependencies
6 Use Project.dependencies() to configure the dependencies for this project
7 Use the Kotlin JUnit 5 integration
8 Use the gradlePlugin{} block from GradlePluginDevelopmentExtension in the Kotlin DSL
9 Define the plugin id and implementationClass
gradle/license-plugin/plugin/build.gradle
plugins {                                                           (1)
    id 'java-gradle-plugin'                                         (2)
    id 'groovy'                                                     (3)
}

repositories {                                                      (4)
    mavenCentral()                                                  (5)
}

dependencies {                                                      (6)
    testImplementation libs.spock.core
    testRuntimeOnly 'org.junit.platform:junit-platform-launcher'
}

gradlePlugin {                                                      (7)
    plugins {
        greeting {
            id = 'license.greeting'                                 (8)
            implementationClass = 'license.LicensePlugin'
        }
    }
}

// Additional lines //
1 Use the plugins{} block from the PluginDependenciesSpec API in the Groovy DSL
2 Apply the Java Gradle plugin development plugin to add support for developing Gradle plugins
3 Apply the Groovy plugin to add support for Groovy
4 Use Project.repositories() to configure the repositories for this project
5 Use Maven Central for resolving dependencies
6 Use Project.dependencies() to configure the dependencies for this project
7 Use the gradlePlugin{} block from the PluginAware API in the Groovy DSL
8 Define the plugin id and implementationClass

Plugins, which enhance your build capabilities, are included like this:

plugins {
    id("java")                          // core plugin, no version required
    id("org.some.plugin") version "2.8" // community plugin, version required
}
plugins {
    id 'java'                          // core plugin, no version required
    id 'org.some.plugin' version '2.8' // community plugin, version required
}

The repositories section lets Gradle know where to pull dependencies from:

repositories {
    mavenCentral()  // get dependencies from the Maven central repository
}
repositories {
    mavenCentral()  // get dependencies from the Maven central repository
}

Dependencies are requirements for building your application or library:

dependencies {
    // group: 'org.apache.commons', name: 'commons-lang3', version: '3.13.0'
    implementation("org.apache.commons:commons-lang3:3.13.0")
}
dependencies {
    // group: 'org.apache.commons', name: 'commons-lang3', version: '3.13.0'
    implementation 'org.apache.commons:commons-lang3:3.13.0'
}

In this example, implementation() means that the commons-lang3 library must be added to the Java classpath.

Every dependency declared for a Gradle project must apply to a scope. That is, the dependency is either needed at compile time, runtime, or both. This is called a configuration and the implementation configuration is used when the dependency is only needed in the runtime classpath.

Configuration blocks (not to be confused with dependency configurations above) are typically used to configure an applied plugin:

gradlePlugin {  // Define a custom plugin
    val greeting by plugins.creating {  // Define `greeting` plugin using the `plugins.creating` method
        id = "license.greeting" // Create plugin with the specified ID
        implementationClass = "license.LicensePlugin"   // and specified implementation class
    }
}
gradlePlugin {  // Define a custom plugin
    plugins {
        greeting {  // Define a plugin named greeting
            id = 'license.greeting' // using the id
            implementationClass = 'license.LicensePlugin' // and implementationClass
        }
    }
}

When the java-gradle-plugin is applied, users must configure the plugin they are developing using the gradlePlugin{} configuration block.

Tasks are units of work executed during your build. They can be defined by plugins or inline:

val functionalTest by tasks.registering(Test::class) {
    testClassesDirs = functionalTestSourceSet.output.classesDirs
    classpath = functionalTestSourceSet.runtimeClasspath
    useJUnitPlatform()
}

tasks.named<Test>("test") {
    // Use JUnit Jupiter for unit tests.
    useJUnitPlatform()
}
tasks.register('functionalTest', Test) {
    testClassesDirs = sourceSets.functionalTest.output.classesDirs
    classpath = sourceSets.functionalTest.runtimeClasspath
    useJUnitPlatform()
}

tasks.named('test') {
    // Use JUnit Jupiter for unit tests.
    useJUnitPlatform()
}

In the example generated by Gradle init, we define two tasks:

  1. functionalTest: This task is registered using tasks.register(). It configures the test task for functional tests.

  2. test: This task is configured using tasks.named() for the existing test task. It also configures the task to use JUnit Jupiter for unit tests.

Step 3. Update the Build scripts

Over the following sections, we will update LicensePlugin to a plugin that automatically generates license headers for source code files. Let’s first update the build script with the proper name for our new license plugin:

gradle/license-plugin/plugin/build.gradle.kts
gradlePlugin {
    val license by plugins.creating {   // Update name to license
        id = "com.tutorial.license"     // Update id to com.gradle.license
        implementationClass = "license.LicensePlugin"
    }
}
gradle/license-plugin/plugin/build.gradle
gradlePlugin {
    // Define the plugin
    plugins {
        license {                       // Update name to license
            id = 'com.tutorial.license' // Update id to com.gradle.license
            implementationClass = 'license.LicensePlugin'
        }
    }
}

Step 3. Apply the Plugin

Let’s apply our license plugin to the app subproject:

app/build.gradle.kts
plugins {
    application
    id("com.tutorial.license")  // Apply the license plugin
}
app/build.gradle
plugins {
    id 'application'
    id('com.tutorial.license')  // Apply the license plugin
}

Step 4. View Plugin Task

Build init creates a "hello world" plugin when generating a Gradle plugin project. Inside LicensePlugin is simply a task that prints a greeting to the console, the task name is greeting:

gradle/license-plugin/plugin/src/main/kotlin/license/LicensePlugin.kt
class LicensePlugin: Plugin<Project> {
    override fun apply(project: Project) {                          // Apply plugin
        project.tasks.register("greeting") { task ->                // Register a task
            task.doLast {
                println("Hello from plugin 'com.tutorial.greeting'")  // Hello world printout
            }
        }
    }
}
gradle/license-plugin/plugin/src/main/groovy/license/LicensePlugin.groovy
class LicensePlugin implements Plugin<Project> {
    void apply(Project project) {
        // Register a task
        project.tasks.register("greeting") {
            doLast {
                println("Hello from plugin 'com.tutorial.greeting'")
            }
        }
    }
}

As we can see, the license plugin, when applied, exposes a greeting task with a simple print statement.

Step 5. View Plugin Tasks

When the license plugin is applied to the app project, the greeting task becomes available:

To view the task in the root directory, run:

$ ./gradlew tasks --all

------------------------------------------------------------
Tasks runnable from root project 'authoring-tutorial'
------------------------------------------------------------

...

Other tasks
-----------
app:greeting
app:task1
app:task2
lib:task3

Finally, run the greeting task using ./gradlew greeting or:

$ ./gradlew :app:greeting

> Task :app:greeting
Hello from plugin 'com.tutorial.greeting'

Next Step: Writing Tasks >>