Gradle Task

External

• Task API: org.gradle.api.Task
• Task DSL: https://docs.gradle.org/current/dsl/org.gradle.api.Task.html

Internal

• Gradle Concepts

Overview

A task represents a well defined piece of work that is executing during a build, such as compiling Java classes or creating a distribution file. The goal of a Gradle execution, also known as a Gradle build, is to execute a set of tasks, in sequence.

A tasks belongs to a project. Each project comes with a set of pre-defined, built-in tasks. Each declared plugin may add its own tasks. New simple tasks can be defined in-line in build.gradle or in script plugins. Tasks whose implementations are available on the build's classpath can be declared and configured in build.gradle, as enhanced tasks, and thus made available for use during the build. Complex tasks can even be fully defined in-line or in script plugins, by providing the task code in-line in the script, though this is not a recommended practice, as it does not encourage modularization, encapsulation and sharing.

Any task instance implements org.gradle.api.Task interface. Most tasks extend directly or indirectly org.gradle.api.DefaultTask.

Declaring, configuring and defining tasks is done via corresponding Project API methods:

Project.task(String name)
Project.task(String name, Closure configureClosure)
Project.task(String name, Action<? super Task> configureAction)
Project.task(Map<String, ?> args, String name)
Project.task(Map<String, ?> args, String name, Closure configureClosure)

A Gradle build executes the task specified on command line, including all explicit and implicit dependencies of the task.

./gradlew build

Task Lifecycle

The tasks are instantiated and configured in the build configuration phase. Their configuration closures are executed at this phase. The task's actions are executed in the execution phase.

Task Structure

Task Name and Path

Each task has a name, which is unique within the context of its owning project. The name must not contain dashes. Since different projects may contain tasks with the same name, a task is uniquely identified by its path in the context of a multi-project build. The path is the concatenation of the task owning project name and the task name, separated by the ":" character.

Task Action

Each task contains a list of actions, which are executed in order in which they were added to the list. Actions can be added to the task by invoking the Task API methods doFirst(Action|Closure), which adds the action at the head of the list, and doLast(Action|Closure), which adds the action at the tail of the list. Actions can also be added in-line with corresponding DSL keywords, as shown in Defining a Simple Task section.

Task Configuration Closure

This is code provided when the task is declared and aimed to configure the task during the build configuration phase. For more details, see Task Lifecycle, above.

Task Dependencies and Ordering

https://docs.gradle.org/current/dsl/org.gradle.api.Task.html#N18D13

Defining Custom Tasks

https://docs.gradle.org/current/userguide/custom_tasks.html

The simplest way of extending Gradle is write a custom task. The custom task can be declared in-line in the default build script build.gradle, as a simple task. The simple task can also be declared in-line in a separate build script, which is then included from the default build script. The code of the custom task can live in a separate source file or multiple files, which in turn can be declared in buildSrc, which is a special area of the Gradle project, or can be shared with other projects as part of a library, developed in its own project. Such a task is referred to as a enhanced task.

Simple Task

A simple task is an implementation of org.gradle.api.DefaultTask that can be declared in-line in build.gradle or in script plugin using DSL keywords ("task", "doFirst", "doLast", etc.) corresponding to Task API methods. The example below shows a syntax where the task name and a task configuration closure are provided.

task customSimpleTask {

  // this is the task configuration closure, it is executed during the configuration phase
  println "this will be displayed during configuration phase"

  // will add the action defined in the closure at the head of the action list
  doFirst {
    println "this will be executed first when the action is executed in the build execution phase"
  }

  // will add the action defined in the closure at the tail of the action list
  doLast {
    println "this will be executed last when the action is executed in the build execution phase"
  }
}

Examples:

• Custom simple task declared in-line in build.gradle
• Custom simple task declared in-line in a script plugin

Enhanced Task

Extending Gradle with Custom Enhanced Tasks

Built-in Tasks

Each build exposes a set of built-in tasks, that can be used right away without any additional configuration or loading any plugin:

• init
• wrapper
• buildEnvironment
• components
• dependencies
• dependencyInsight
• dependentComponents
• help
• model
• projects
• properties
• tasks

Task Operations

• Listing all available tasks.

TO DEPLETE

Gradle Task TODEPLETE