androidJacocoAnt configuration no longer found with Android Gradle plugin 3.1.0

Question

After updating to Android Gradle plugin 3.1.0 (from 3.0.1) my JaCoCo unit test coverage configuration started producing errors in Gradle config phase:

> Configuration with name 'androidJacocoAnt' not found.

Project-level build.gradle:

dependencies {
    classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:3.1.0'
    classpath "org.jacoco:org.jacoco.core:0.8.1"
}

Module-level build.gradle:

apply plugin: 'jacoco'

...

android {
    buildTypes {
        debug {
            testCoverageEnabled true
        }
    }

    ...
}

task jacocoTestReport(type: JacocoReport) {
    dependsOn 'createDebugCoverageReport'
    dependsOn 'testDebugUnitTest'

    reports {
        xml.enabled = true
        html.enabled = true
        csv.enabled = false
    }

    jacocoClasspath = configurations['androidJacocoAnt']

    def fileFilter = [
            '**/R.class',
            '**/R$*.class',
            '**/BuildConfig.*',
            '**/Manifest*.*',
            '**/*Test*.*',
            'android/**/*.*'
    ]

    def debugTree = fileTree(dir: "${buildDir}/intermediates/classes/debug", excludes: fileFilter)
    def mainSrc = "${project.projectDir}/src/main/java"
    print("${project.projectDir}/src/main/java")

    sourceDirectories = files([mainSrc])
    classDirectories = files([debugTree])
    executionData = fileTree(dir: "$buildDir", includes: [
            "jacoco/testDebugUnitTest.exec",
            "outputs/code-coverage/connected/*coverage.ec"
    ])
}

Answer 1

Diffing the output of gradle dependencies with different plugin versions, it seems that

jacocoClasspath = configurations['androidJacocoAnt']

needs to change to

jacocoClasspath = configurations['jacocoAnt']

Answer 2

Do you need JaCoCo 8.1 in latest Android Gradle Plugin 3.1 or higher?

issue is in gradle plugin, in it version of the JaCoCo is hardcoded to 0.7.9

Workaround (step 1 from 2): Add into root build.gradle

buildscript {
    ext {
        jacocoVersion = project.JACOCO_VERSION
    }
    dependencies {
        /* To confirm JaCoCo version run: $ ./gradlew buildEnvironment */
        //region classpath "org.jacoco:org.jacoco.core:${jacocoVersion}"
        /* Resolves issue of incorrect version use in one of jacoco/android plugin inner tasks */
        classpath "org.jacoco:org.jacoco.core:${jacocoVersion}"
        classpath "org.jacoco:org.jacoco.report:${jacocoVersion}"
        classpath "org.jacoco:org.jacoco.agent:${jacocoVersion}"
        //endregion
    }
}

Workaround (step 2 from 2): Add into root build.gradle

/* Force Jacoco Agent version upgrade */
subprojects {
    configurations.all {
        resolutionStrategy {
            eachDependency { details ->
                if ('org.jacoco' == details.requested.group) {
                    details.useVersion "${jacocoVersion}"
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Enjoy