Gradle Training — Modern Build Automation for Java, Android & Polyglot Projects

What Is Gradle?

Gradle is a modern, flexible build automation tool that combines the best of Ant (flexibility) and Maven (convention). Using a Groovy or Kotlin DSL, Gradle handles Java, Kotlin, Android, Scala, C++, and polyglot builds with excellent performance through incremental builds, build caching, and parallel execution. Gradle is the official build system for Android and is widely adopted for Spring Boot, Kotlin, and large-scale Java projects.

Where Gradle Fits in Modern DevOps

Gradle is the build tool of choice for Android development, Kotlin projects, and organizations that need build flexibility beyond Maven's conventions. Gradle's performance features (build cache, parallel execution, incremental builds) make it ideal for large monorepos and microservices with shared build logic. Gradle integrates natively with Jenkins, GitHub Actions, and TeamCity through the Gradle Build Tool and Gradle Enterprise for build analytics.

Who Should Attend

• Java/Kotlin developers using or migrating to Gradle
• Android developers who want to master the Android build system
• DevOps engineers optimizing build performance for large projects
• Build engineers evaluating Maven vs. Gradle for new projects

Learning Outcomes

• Write Gradle build scripts using Groovy DSL and Kotlin DSL
• Configure multi-project builds with shared build logic (buildSrc, convention plugins)
• Implement dependency management with version catalogs and BOMs
• Develop custom Gradle plugins for organization-wide build conventions
• Optimize build performance with caching, parallel execution, and configuration avoidance
• Integrate Gradle with Jenkins, GitHub Actions, and Gradle Enterprise

Course Modules

1. Gradle Fundamentals — Build script structure. Tasks. Plugins. Dependencies. Groovy DSL vs. Kotlin DSL.
2. Dependency Management — Repositories. Configurations. Version catalogs. BOMs. Dependency locking.
3. Multi-Project Builds — Settings. Subprojects. buildSrc. Convention plugins. Composite builds.
4. Task Development — Task lifecycle. Incremental tasks. Caching. Inputs/outputs. Parallel execution.
5. Gradle Plugins — Using plugins. Writing custom plugins. Precompiled script plugins. Plugin publishing.
6. Testing & Quality — JVM test suites. Code quality plugins. JaCoCo. Test reporting and parallelization.
7. Android Builds — Android Gradle Plugin. Build types. Product flavors. App signing. Build optimization.
8. Gradle in CI/CD — Jenkins + Gradle. GitHub Actions + Gradle. Build scans. Dependency caching.
9. Build Performance — Configuration avoidance. Build cache. Remote build cache. Profiling. Optimization.
10. Capstone: Enterprise Gradle Build — Design a multi-project Gradle build with convention plugins, version catalogs, and CI/CD.

Hands-on Exercises

Migrate a Maven project to Gradle. Build a multi-module Spring Boot project with Kotlin DSL. Create a custom Gradle convention plugin. Configure build caching and measure performance improvement. Integrate Gradle with GitHub Actions.

Enterprise Use Cases

• Standardizing builds across 50+ Spring Boot microservices with Gradle convention plugins
• Optimizing Android CI/CD build times (15 min → 3 min with caching)
• Managing polyglot builds (Java + Kotlin + Python) with a single Gradle configuration

Related Courses

See also Maven Training, Ant Training (for legacy), or the DevOps Engineering program.