June 2025
Table of Contents
Introduction
From The Community #
New Posts #
- Toast turns up the heat on slow builds With Gradle and DPE by Todd R. Weiss - Learn all about how Toast significantly reduced their build times from 78 to 27 minutes by adopting Developer Productivity Engineering (DPE) practices
- From spaghetti to strategy: Managing Gradle in large Android codebases by Jamshidbek Boynazarov - Delve into the challenges of scaling Gradle configurations in expansive Android projects
- Brief history of POM file proliferation by Aurimas Liutikas - A review of POM file limitations and how Gradle’s metadata model improves JVM dependency resolution
New Videos #
- KotlinConf - Fast inner dev loops - Alex and Rodrigo (from Gradle) talk about speeding up Kotlin Gradle builds
- IntelliJ IDEA Conference live stream day 2 - Catch Paul (from Gradle) and Dmitriy (from IntelliJ) talk about IntelliJ IDEA, the IDE that speaks Gradle
- Quarkus Insights episode #207 - The Gradle team talks about Configuration Cache compatibility in your builds
- Master Gradle faster with the Gradle build Bible - Tom Gregory’s comprehensive course will help you master Gradle fundamentals
New Releases #
- Version 2.4 of the JVM Dependency Conflict Resolution Plugin introduces improved diagnostics and compatibility for managing dependency version conflicts
- Version 2.0.0 of the IAC Plugin introduces robust support for Terraform and OpenTofu, with breaking DSL changes and a minimum requirement of Gradle 7.3.3 and JDK 11
- Caupain is a new Gradle plugin from Deezer that helps you keep version catalogs up to date
- Elide is a new Gradle plugin that integrates the Elide runtime and toolchain, powered by GraalVM, for faster Java, Kotlin, JS/TS, and Python builds
From The Gradle Team #
Gradle Hits An All-Time Record #
🎉 Gradle Build Tool now exceeds 50 million monthly downloads!
This includes downloads via the Gradle Wrapper, Tooling API, and direct links from services.gradle.org. The actual number is even higher when factoring in mirrors, Docker images, and package managers.
A huge thank you to the entire community of developers, contributors, and build engineers who continue to choose and improve Gradle. Surpassing 50 million monthly downloads is a reflection of your trust and the project’s growing impact. Your feedback and contributions shape the future of build automation.
Help others discover Gradle by starring our GitHub repository.
Gradle 9 Release Candidate #
The first release candidate is ready, and we’d love your feedback.
Highlights include:
- The Configuration Cache is now the preferred mode of execution and we recommend it for all new projects. Check out the announcement.
- Gradle now supports Kotlin 2.2+ and the new K2 compiler for build authoring, aligning with the latest Kotlin ecosystem developments.
- The minimum required Java version has been raised to Java 17.
- We’ve also removed deprecated APIs, following our deprecation policy.
The GA release is expected next month. In the meantime, test the RC, then share feedback on the issue tracker or in the Gradle Community Slack.
Gradle Build Cache Webinar #
Join us for our upcoming webinar on Gradle Build Cache! Build caching and related performance gains have contributed to making Gradle Build Tool one of the most popular tools in the JVM ecosystem, and Gradle’s caching capabilities will continue to evolve this year.
Laura Kassovic and Oleg Nenashev—that’s us, the authors of this newsletter—are hosting a webinar on July 24 to show how Gradle’s build cache can help you cut down your build times by reusing task outputs from previous runs. We’ll review real-world examples from open source projects that are using a free Gradle-sponsored Develocity instance to leverage local and distributed caching. We’ll also share pointers for developers looking to level up their Gradle Build Tool skills.
Sign up here. We hope to see you there!
Gradle 7 And 8 Patch Releases #
Both Gradle 8.14.2 and 7.6.5 address improvements in dynamic version resolution, ensuring more accurate and efficient dependency management. Gradle 7.6.5 also backports key dependency updates for better compatibility and performance.
Check out the full details in the 8.14.2 and 7.6.5 release notes.
Maven Central Is Changing #
Heads up: On June 30, 2025, publishing to Maven Central via the legacy OSSRH backend will break. Gradle users must migrate to updated publishing tools that support the new API.
See the Gradle Cookbook to learn more.
Upcoming Events #
Meet the Gradle team and fellow community members at these upcoming events! We’d love to connect with you and discuss anything related to Gradle Build Tool, Develocity, or Developer Productivity Engineering (DPE).
- June 26, Software Delivery Excellence in the age of AI - Join this fireside chat with Scala creator Martin Odersky and Gradle founder Hans Dockter, as they unpack the evolving landscape of developer productivity in the age of GenAI.
- July 10, Java Forum Stuttgart - Stefan Wolf will present on Developer-first Gradle.
- July 24, Build Cache Webinar - Laura Kassovic and Oleg Nenashev showcase everything you need to know about the Gradle Build Cache.
- August 3-10, JCrete - Oleg Nenashev will join this un-conference focused on the Java tooling ecosystem and developer productivity.
- August 19-21, Scala Days - Come visit the Gradle team and hear from Gradle Senior Software Engineer Martin Duhem on “Exploring Build Caching: A Practical Overview”
- September 23-24, DPE Summit by Gradle, San Francisco - Registration is open and the first round of speakers has been announced! Don’t miss your chance to attend the only conference dedicated entirely to DPE and DX.
Spread the Word #
We encourage you to share highlights from this newsletter — let’s support the authors and contributors!
You can always find this and previous editions in the Gradle Newsletter Archive or subscribe via RSS.
The Call for Proposals for the July edition is now open and we’d love your contributions!