Gradle Release Notes

Upgrade instructions

Switch your build to use Gradle 8.0-rc-1 by updating your wrapper:

./gradlew wrapper --gradle-version=8.0-rc-1

See the Gradle 7.x upgrade guide to learn about deprecations, breaking changes and other considerations when upgrading to Gradle 8.0-rc-1.

For Java, Groovy, Kotlin and Android compatibility, see the full compatibility notes.

New features and usability improvements

JVM

Updated Toolchain Download Repositories

Gradle 7.6 introduced arbitrary toolchain repositories. In Gradle 8.0, there is no longer a default toolchain provisioner. You have to declare at least one Java Toolchain repository explicitly. This can be done via toolchain repository plugins, like the Foojay Toolchains Plugin:

plugins {
    id("org.gradle.toolchains.foojay-resolver-convention") version("0.3.0")
}

For more information, see Toolchain Download Repositories.

Kotlin DSL

Gradle's Kotlin DSL provides an alternative syntax to the traditional Groovy DSL with an enhanced editing experience in supported IDEs, with superior content assistance, refactoring, documentation, and more.

Updated the Kotlin DSL to Kotlin API Level 1.8

Previously, the Kotlin DSL used Kotlin API level 1.4. Starting with Gradle 8.0, the Kotlin DSL uses Kotlin API level 1.8. This change brings all the improvements made to the Kotlin language and standard library since Kotlin 1.4.0.

For information about breaking and nonbreaking changes in this upgrade, see the upgrading guide.

Enhanced script compilation to use the Gradle JVM as Kotlin JVM Target

Previously, the compilation of .gradle.kts scripts always used Java 8 as the Kotlin JVM target. Starting with Gradle 8.0, it now uses the version of the JVM running the build.

If your team is using e.g. Java 11 to run Gradle, this allows you to use Java 11 libraries and language features in your build scripts.

Note that this doesn't apply to precompiled script plugins, see below.

Precompiled script plugins now use the configured Java Toolchain

Previously, the compilation of precompiled script plugins used the JVM target as configured on kotlinDslPluginOptions.jvmTarget. Starting with Gradle 8.0, it now uses the configured Java Toolchain, or Java 8 if none is configured.

See the kotlin-dsl plugin manual for more information on how to configure the Java Toolchain for precompiled script plugins and the migration guide for more information on changed behaviour.

Improved Script compilation performance

Gradle 8.0 introduces an interpreter for the declarative plugins {} blocks in .gradle.kts scripts that make the overall build time around 20% faster. By default, calling the Kotlin compiler for declarative plugins {} blocks is avoided.

To utilize this performance, ensure you are using the supported formats in the declarative plugins {} blocks, for example:

plugins {
    id("java-library")                               // <1>
    id("com.acme.example") version "1.0 apply false  // <2>
    kotlin("jvm") version "1.7.21"                   // <3>
}

1. Plugin specification by plugin identifier string
2. Plugin specification with version and/or the plugin application flag
3. Kotlin plugin specification helper

Note that using version catalog aliases for plugins or plugin specification type-safe accessors is not supported by the plugins {} block interpreter. This support will be added in a later version.

In unsupported cases, Gradle falls back to the Kotlin compiler, providing the same performance as previous Gradle releases.

General Improvements

Enhanced warning modes all and fail are now more verbose

Warning modes that are supposed to print all warnings were printing only one for each specific warning message.

If there were two warnings with the same message, but originating from different steps of the build process (i.e. different stack traces), only one of them was printed.

Now one gets printed for each combination of message and stack trace.

For more information about warning modes, see Showing or hiding warnings.

Improved Dependency verification metadata

The following nodes with dependency verification metadata file verification-metadata.xml now support a reason attribute:

• the trust xml node under trusted-artifacts
• the md5, sha1, sha256 and sha512 nodes under component

A reason is helpful to provide more details on why an artifact is trusted or why a selected checksum verification is required for an artifact directly in the verification-metadata.xml.

Improved Dependency verification CLI

You can now use the export-keys flag to export all already trusted keys:

./gradlew --export-keys

There is no longer a need to write verification metadata when exporting trusted keys.

For more information, see Exporting keys.

Configuration Cache

The configuration cache improves build time by caching the result of the configuration phase and reusing this for subsequent builds.

Consistent task execution for configuration cache hit and configuration cache miss builds

In Gradle 8.0, tasks run in parallel from the first build when using the configuration cache. Gradle now loads the set of tasks from the cache entry after storing them on a cache miss. These tasks are isolated and can run in parallel. This is more fine-grained than using the --parallel flag.

When the configuration cache is enabled, and Gradle is able to locate a compatible configuration cache entry for the requested tasks, it loads the tasks to run from the cache entry and runs them as so-called 'isolated' tasks. Isolated tasks are able to run in parallel by default, subject to dependency constraints.

When Gradle is unable to locate a configuration cache entry to use, it runs the 'configuration' phase to calculate the set of tasks to run and then stores these tasks to a new cache entry. In previous versions, Gradle would then run these tasks directly. However, as these tasks are not isolated, they would not run in parallel.

There are some additional advantages to this new behavior:

• Any problems that happen during deserialization will be reported in the cache miss build, making it easier to spot such problems.
• Tasks have access to the same state in cache miss and cache hit builds.
• Gradle can release all memory used by the configuration state prior to task execution in the cache miss build. Previously it would retain this state because the non-isolated tasks were able to access it.
• This reduces the peak memory usage for a given set of tasks.

This consistent behavior for cache miss and cache hit builds can help people who are migrating to use the configuration cache, as more problems can now be discovered on the first (cache miss) build.

Improved compatibility with core plugins

The gradle init command can be used with the configuration cache enabled.

The ANTLR plugin and Groovy DSL precompiled scripts are now compatible with the configuration cache.

The current status of the configuration cache support for all core Gradle plugins can be found in the configuration cache documentation.

Improved Gradle User Home Cache Cleanup

Previously, cleanup of the caches in Gradle User Home used fixed retention periods (30 days or 7 days depending on the cache). These retention periods can now be configured via the Settings object in an init script in Gradle User Home.

beforeSettings { settings ->
    settings.caches {
        downloadedResources.removeUnusedEntriesAfterDays = 45
    }
}

Furthermore, it was previously only possible to partially disable cache cleanup via the org.gradle.cache.cleanup Gradle property in Gradle User Home. Disabling cache cleanup now affects more caches under Gradle User Home and can also be configured via the Settings object in an init script in Gradle User Home.

beforeSettings { settings ->
    settings.caches {
        cleanup = Cleanup.DISABLED
    }
}

See Configuring cleanup of caches and distributions for more information.

Improvements for buildSrc builds

This release includes several improvements for buildSrc builds to behave more like included builds.

Run buildSrc tasks directly

It is now possible to run the tasks of a buildSrc build from the command-line, using the same syntax used for tasks of included builds. For example, you can use gradle buildSrc:build to run the build task in the buildSrc build.

For more details, see the user manual

buildSrc can include other builds

The buildSrc build can now include other builds by declaring them in buildSrc/settings.gradle.kts or buildSrc/settings.gradle. You can use pluginsManagement { includeBuild(someDir) } or includeBuild(someDir) in this settings script to include other builds in buildSrc.

For more details, see the user manual

Tests for buildSrc are no longer automatically run

When Gradle builds the output of buildSrc it only runs the tasks that produce that output. It no longer runs the build task. In particular, this means that the tests of buildSrc and its subprojects are not built and executed when they are not needed.

You can run the tests for buildSrc in the same way as other projects, as described above.

Init scripts are applied to buildSrc

Init scripts specified on the command-line using --init-script are now applied to buildSrc, in addition to the main build and all included builds.

Code Quality Plugin Improvements

Enhanced CodeNarc Plugin to automatically detects the appropriate version for the current Groovy runtime

The CodeNarc project now publishes separate versions for use with Groovy 4. Gradle still currently ships with Groovy 3.

To ensure future compatibility, the CodeNarc Plugin now automatically detects the appropriate version of CodeNarc for the current Groovy runtime.

You can still explicitly specify a CodeNarc version with the toolVersion property on the CodeNarcExtension.

Enhanced PMD tasks to execute in parallel by default

The PMD plugin now uses the Gradle worker API and JVM toolchains. This tool now performs analysis via an external worker process, and therefore its tasks may now run in parallel within one project.

In Java projects, this tool will use the same version of Java required by the project. In other types of projects, it will use the same version of Java that is used by the Gradle daemon.

Promoted features

Promoted features are features that were incubating in previous versions of Gradle but are now supported and subject to backwards compatibility. See the User Manual section on the “Feature Lifecycle” for more information.

The following are the features that have been promoted in this Gradle release.

Promoted features in the Tooling API

• The GradleConnector.disconnect() method is now considered stable.

Promoted features in the antlr plugin

• The AntlrSourceDirectorySet interface is now considered stable.

Promoted features in the ear plugin

• The Ear.getAppDirectory() method is now considered stable.

Promoted features in the eclipse plugin

• The EclipseClasspath.getContainsTestFixtures() method is now considered stable.

Promoted features in the groovy plugin

The following type and method are now considered stable:

• GroovySourceDirectorySet
• GroovyCompileOptions.getDisabledGlobalASTTransformations()

Promoted features in the scala plugin

• The ScalaSourceDirectorySet interface is now considered stable.

Promoted features in the war plugin

• The War.getWebAppDirectory() method is now considered stable.

Promoted features in the Settings API

• The methods Settings.dependencyResolutionManagement(Action) and Settings.getDependencyResolutionManagement() are now considered stable.
  • All the methods in DependencyResolutionManagement are now stable, except the ones for central repository declaration.

Fixed issues

Known issues

Known issues are problems that were discovered post release that are directly related to changes made in this release.

External contributions

We love getting contributions from the Gradle community. For information on contributing, please see gradle.org/contribute.

Reporting problems

If you find a problem with this release, please file a bug on GitHub Issues adhering to our issue guidelines. If you're not sure you're encountering a bug, please use the forum.

We hope you will build happiness with Gradle, and we look forward to your feedback via Twitter or on GitHub.