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Gradle Basics

Gradle automates building, testing and deployment using build scripts.

Gradle core concepts​

Projects​

A Gradle project is a piece of software that can be built, such as an application or a library.
Single project builds include a single project called the root project.
Multi-project builds include one root project and any number of subprojects.

Build Scripts​

Build scripts steps, which Gradle should do to build the project.
Project can have one or more build scripts.

Dependency Management​

Dependency management is an automation, which helps declaring and resolving external resources required by a project.
Typical project includes a number of external dependencies that Gradle will resolve during the build.

Tasks​

Tasks are a basic unit of work like compiling or running tests.
Project contains one or more tasks defined in a build script or a plugin.

Plugins​

Plugins are extensions of Gradle capabilities. Optionally contribute tasks to a project.

Gradle project structure​

A typical Gradle project will look like:

project
├── gradle                             (1)
│   ├── libs.versions.toml             (2) 
│   └── wrapper
│       ├── gradle-wrapper.jar
│       └── gradle-wrapper.properties
├── gradlew                            (3) 
├── gradlew.bat                        (3) 
├── settings.gradle(.kts)              (4) 
├── subproject-a
│   ├── build.gradle(.kts)             (5) 
│   └── src                            (6) 
└── subproject-b
    ├── build.gradle(.kts)             (5) 
    └── src                            (6)

(1) Directory to store wrapper file and more
(2) Version catalog for dependency management
(3) Wrapper scripts
(4) Settings file to define a root project name and subprojects
(5) Build scripts of the two subprojects
(6) Source code and additional project's files

Invoking Gradle​

IDE​

Gradle is build-in to many IDEs including IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse and NetBeans. It can be automatically invoked during the build, or application run in the IDE.

Command line​

Can be invoked in the command line once installed. For example:

$ gradle build
note

Most project do not use the installed version of Gradle.

Gradle wrapper​

The Wrapper is a script that invokes declared version of Gradle. It is the recommended way to execute a Gradle build. It can be found in the project root directory as a gradlew or gradlew.bat file:

$ gradlew build     // Linux or OSX
$ gradlew.bat build // Windows