1. Building LabKey with Gradle
Susan Hert, Senior Software Developer
Building LabKey with Gradle
Release 17.2

2. From Ant to Gradle What’s a Gradle? Why the transition?
What will change?
How do you transition?
What’s the timeline?

3. An open source build automation system, initially developed for JVM projects, providing:
a Groovy-based, domain-specific language
flexibility in configuration and build logic
dependency management through repositories
integration with IntelliJ, TeamCity, etc.

4. Why the Transition?
The ant is knowing and wise, but he doesn't know enough to take a vacation.
Clarence Day
handle your dependencies.

5. Why the Transition? Dependency management Building more with less
project dependences
external dependencies
top-level and transitive dependencies
handles publishing & retrieving of artifacts
Building more with less
Shorter, targeted build steps
Better up-to-date checks

6. The Players
The build tool Configures all build projects and executes all build logic
The artifact builder
Publishes artifacts and runs integration tests
The artifact repository
Stores artifacts (e.g., jar files) for use by builders

7. What will change? ant build build.xml standard.modules
unversioned artifacts
external jars in version control
IntelliJ project in server
./gradlew deployApp
build.gradle
settings.gradle
versioned artifacts
external jars downloaded
IntelliJ project at root

8. How to Transition Command line IntelliJ project
set up some properties in gradle.properties file
use gradle commands and tasks (targets)
IntelliJ project
Use project at the root level instead of in server
Use Gradle window to dynamically create .iml files
Build script conversion (possibly optional)
build.xml build.gradle

9. Gradle Files gradlew settings.gradle build.gradle gradlePlugin
The Gradle Wrapper, which does all the work
settings.gradle
Indicates which modules to include in the build
build.gradle
Configuration of the build steps
gradlePlugin
jar file with plugins, tasks and utilities for the LabKey server build
gradle.properties
Not every module has a build.gradle
Next: show projects and tasks commands

10. Developer Scenarios Initial build Adding a file-based module
from LabKey distribution
from source
Adding a file-based module
Adding a Java module
Working with IntelliJ
Cleaning up
Be cautious about combining an ant distribution with a Gradle build

11. Versioning - Please note
All examples here are using
latest svn trunk
gradlePlugin latest 1.0-SNAPSHOT version
In other words, what you see here may not work with a 17.1 version of LabKey.

12. Initial Build from Distribution
Get SVN enlistment (or ant clean)
Download distribution
Copy to dist directory
Pick database
./gradlew :server:pickPg OR
./gradlew :server:pickMSSQL
Deploy distribution
./gradlew :server:deployDistribution

13. Initial Build from Source
Get SVN enlistment (or ant clean)
Pick database
./gradlew :server:pickPg OR
./gradlew :server:pickMSSQL
Deploy Application
./gradlew :server:deployApp

14. Adding Your Own Module Apply plugins in build.gradle
Declare dependencies in build.gradle
Deploy module

15. Building a File-based LabKey Module
Apply plugins in build.gradle
apply plugin: ‘java’
apply plugin: ‘org.labkey.fileModule’
Declare dependencies in build.gradle
dependencies { … }
Deploy module (from the module directory)
./gradlew :path:to:module:deployModule

16. Building a Java-based LabKey Module
Apply plugins in build.gradle
apply plugin: ‘java’
apply plugin: ‘org.labkey.module’
Declare dependencies in build.gradle
dependencies { … }
Deploy module (from the module directory)
./gradlew :path:to:module:deployModule
Applying plugins to subprojects

17. IntelliJ & Gradle Project is located at the root directory
DO NOT use the default “linking of gradle project” from IntelliJ
Instead use the sync operation in the Gradle window

18. Cleaning Up
Tip: Do not engage in unnecessary cleaning.

19. Build Progression source directory (myModule)
./gradlew module
build directory build/modules/myModule
./gradlew deployModule
staging and deployment directories
build/staging/modules/myModule.module
build/deploy/modules/myModule.module

20. Cleaning Up clean - removes a module’s build directory
cleanDeploy - removes the deploy directory
cleanStaging - removes the staging directory
cleanBuild - removes the entire build directory

21. Transition Timeline Release 17.1 - Gradle introduced to VCS
Version 0.9 of Gradle Plugins has known issues
Not all tasks have been converted
Documentation still in progress
Release Conversion complete
Ant and build.xml files will be removed
server/.idea directory and *.iml files will be removed

22. Resources
LabKey docs (
Gradle docs (
LabKey forum

23. From Ant to Gradle

24. System Overview
Source: