Gradle Properties - Runtime and Project Configuration
External
Internal
Overview
"Properties" in this context represent external configuration elements passed to a Gradle build to modify the behavior of the Gradle runtime itself, or the behavior of tasks being executed by various projects that are part of the build. Gradle supports many kinds of "properties": configuration can be passed as command line flags, system properties, Gradle properties, environment variables and project properties. Some of these properties can be declared in the gradle.properties hierarchy. All these configuration elements are provided externally and injected into the build.
It is also possible to define properties in settings.gradle and build.gradle scripts and pass configuration around between different elements of the build. Those properties are named extra properties.
Since build scripts may include executable code, it is also possible to use local variables, which are a feature of the underlying Groovy language.
The external configuration and extra properties become part of the state of various objects of the build, such as projects or tasks. The state of build objects can be read from the build scripts via dedicated accessors.
A project exposes coordinates such as name, group and version, then various other state elements such as the description, path, and many more. More details about accessing the state of the project is available in:
A task also exposes its state (name, description, whether it is enabled or not) through getters and DLS elements.