Apply gradle custom jar plugin

Question

I've created a simple groovy-based plugin for gradle.

in my gradle.build file I have the following:

apply plugin: 'groovy'

dependencies {
    compile gradleApi()
    compile localGroovy()
}

Everything works great, I get a build directory and a .jar is generated in the lib folder, I guess this is the standalone plugin.

Now I want to know how to register this new plugin into my gradle instalation, so I can do apply plugin: 'myPlugin' I've done the following:

• Droped the plugin into the plugin folder in the installation
• Created the myplugin.properties file and included it in the META-INF folder
• placed the same properties file in the META-INF in the src dir (act of desperation)

Well after every step when I try to apply the plugin I get the error:

• Plugin with id 'myplugin' not found

How can I get this right??

can you state a list of steps that will get my plugin working? (Im new to gradle+groovy)

Thanks for the help

Answer 1

The chapter 58 of the user guide has all the information you need. In summary:

• Put your myPlugin.properties inside your project structure, in src/main/resources/META-INF /gradle-plugins/
• Build your jar like you usually do

• In the script you wish to use this plugin, add a buildscript closure to something like:

  buildscript {
      repositories {
          flatDir dirs: "build/libs"
      }
      dependencies {
          classpath "your.group:your-plugin:1.0.0"
      }
  }
  

Or whatever settings for repositories and dependencies you wish, but you need to use the classpath configuration as I've done here. I don't think you can (or should!) add the jar to the plugin dir of Gradle like you did.

Note: the flatDir does not resolve transitive dependencies. The same rule for dependency management applies to the buildscript, so you can use a regular maven or ivy repository to deploy your plugin.