September 2025
Table of Contents
New posts #
- Gradle modularization delivers 3x faster Android builds - Wojtek Zięba explains how a modularized architecture for Android apps can drastically improve build performance using the Pocket Casts app as a case study.
- Classloader isolation 101 - Martin Bonnin discusses the importance of classloader isolation for Gradle plugins to prevent common issues like dependency conflicts and unnecessary build invalidation.
- Gradle Tower of Babel - Building on top of other plugins - Aurimas Liutikas provides a brief guide on how to build a Gradle plugin that extends another plugin, such as the Android Gradle Plugin (AGP), while avoiding common pitfalls.
- Custom repository metadata formats, or, PyPI in Gradle - Luke Bemish explains how to configure Gradle to work with unsupported dependency metadata formats, using PyPI packages as a case study.
New videos #
- JavaRCAde #0 – Modules in Java development - This video by Gradle fellow Jendrik Johannes is the first part of a new series explaining the JavaRCA recipe for carefree dependency management in Java projects.
From the Gradle team #
Gradle 9.1.0 release #
Gradle 9.1.0 brings several new features and improvements:
- Java 25 support: Gradle now supports Java 25 for both the daemon and through toolchains.
- CLI & visualization: New tools for visualizing task graphs and an enhanced project report improve the command-line experience.
- Configuration Cache: The cache is more effective with a new read-only mode for CI and smarter handling of command-line properties.
- Build authoring: Plugin authors get new APIs for lazy attribute copying and type-safe accessors for `compileOnly` dependencies.
- Plugin improvements: The Antlr, EAR, and Publishing plugins received targeted enhancements for better functionality.
- Error reporting: Version conflict error messages are now clearer, making dependency issues easier to diagnose.
👉 Upgrade now.
We now maintain the official Gradle Docker image #
We’re excited to share that the official Gradle Docker image is now under our direct care. This means you can count on it to be fully aligned with our releases and to get timely updates for your containerized builds and CI/CD pipelines.
And a huge thank you to community member Keegan Witt for his tireless work on the image over the years.
👉 Read the blog post to learn more.
Level up your builds with plugins from the Gradle team #
The Gradle team and fellow contributors have been busy releasing a new tool for Spring Boot developers and updating several key plugins to help you build faster and smarter. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s new and what’s been improved:
- The new Spring Initializr Gradle plugin provides a robust, pre-configured boilerplate for your Spring Boot projects. Inspired by DPE University and Gradle Best Practices, it’s more than just a tool—it’s a reference implementation that integrates essential features like CI/CD, build cache optimization, and advanced testing with Gradle TestKit and Spock. It even includes code quality analysis via CodeNarc to ensure your projects start on a solid foundation.
- Asciidoctor Gradle 4.0.5: This new version is out, ready to help you convert your AsciiDoc documentation using Gradle.
- Plugin Publishing Plugin 2.0.0: The plugin used to publish Gradle plugins has been updated with Configuration Cache compatibility, which means faster builds for plugin authors and users alike.
👉 Check out the Gradle Plugin Portal.
Develocity 2025.3 release #
Develocity 2025.3 introduces new features and enhancements aimed at improving build and test efficiency:
- Develocity MCP server for Agentic AI: This new server makes the build data captured in Develocity available to AI assistants.
- Comprehensive npm dependency insights: The new Dependencies view in Build Scan® for npm provides detailed information on all direct and transitive dependencies.
- sbt Build Cache effectiveness: Analyze new metrics like “avoidance savings” and “build cache overhead” to optimize the performance of your sbt builds.
- Develocity Reporting and Visualization enhancements: npm builds are now included in the Dependencies cross-project dashboard, and the Develocity Reporting Kit 2.0 provides a new, standardized database interface to connect your preferred data visualization tools.
👉 Learn more.
IntelliJ plugin 1.0.0 release #
The Develocity Plugin for IntelliJ 1.0.0 brings real-time Gradle build analysis directly into your development workflow. You can now monitor task execution, resource usage, and build performance without publishing a dedicated Develocity instance or Build Scan® (unless you want to).
Recently, while building Gradle’s documentation (./gradlew :docs:docs), we used the IntelliJ Plugin to find which tasks were consuming the most time and CPU. The main performance culprits were quickly identified and optimized, which turned out to be our DSL generation:
👉 Try it out.
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).
- September 24-26, droidcon Berlin - Europe’s leading Android developer conference. Meet Alex and Mikhail from the Gradle Build Tool team.
- September 29-October 3, GOTO Copenhagen - Catch our very own Java Champion Trisha Gee present “Are your tests slowing you down?”
- October 21-22, Open Source in Finance Forum (NYC) - Meet us at our booth at the premier crossover event for financial services and the open-source ecosystem.
- October 30-31, droidcon London - The #1 conference for all things Android dev. Stop by our booth and meet Louis from the Gradle Build Tool team!
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 October edition is now open, and we’d love your contributions!