@nx/gradle

Gradle is a fast, dependable, and adaptable open-source build automation tool with an elegant and extensible declarative build language. Gradle supports Android, Java, Kotlin Multiplatform, Groovy, Scala, Javascript, and C/C++.

The Nx Gradle plugin registers Gradle projects in your Nx workspace. It allows Gradle tasks to be run through Nx. Nx effortlessly makes your CI faster.

Nx adds the following features to your workspace:

• Cache task results
• Distribute task execution
• Run only tasks affected by a PR
• Interactively explore your workspace

Setup @nx/gradle

Install Nx

You can install Nx globally. Depending on your package manager, use one of the following commands:

Add Nx to a Gradle Workspace

In any Gradle workspace, run the following command to add Nx and the @nx/gradle plugin:

Then, you can run Gradle tasks using Nx. For example:

How @nx/gradle Infers Tasks

The @nx/gradle plugin relies on a companion Gradle plugin, dev.nx.gradle.project-graph, to analyze your Gradle build structure. When using nx add, the Gradle plugin is added as a dependency to the root Gradle build file. In most cases, the generator will add the task definition to trigger the plugin but if it's missing, add the following configuration to your Gradle configuration:

The dev.nx.gradle.project-graph plugin introduces a task named nxProjectGraph. This task analyzes your Gradle projects and their tasks, outputting the structure as JSON. The @nx/gradle plugin then uses this JSON data to accurately build the Nx project graph. If Nx has any issue generate the project graph JSON, you can run the nxProjectGraph task manually:

View Inferred Tasks

To view inferred tasks for a project, open the project details view in Nx Console or run nx show project my-project in the command line.

Setting Up @nx/gradle in a Nx Workspace

In any Nx workspace, you can install @nx/gradle by running the following command:

@nx/gradle Configuration

The @nx/gradle is configured in the plugins array in nx.json.

Once a Gradle configuration file has been identified, the targets are created with the name you specify under testTargetName, classesTargetName or buildTargetName in the nx.json plugins array. The default names for the inferred targets are test, classes and build.

Splitting Tests

The @nx/gradle plugin will automatically split your testing tasks by test class if you provide a ciTestTargetName. You can read more about the Atomizer feature here. Nx will create a task with the name that you specify which can be used in CI to run the tests for each test class in a distributed fashion.

Continuous Tasks

Gradle doesn't have a standard way to identify tasks which are continuous, like bootRun for serving a Spring Boot project. To ensure Nx handles these continuous tasks correctly, you can explicitly mark them as continuous.