Gradle custom plugin's build throws "unable to resolve class"

Question

I'm trying to build a gradle custom plugin that in turn depends on other plugin. In particular, the plugin depends on com.bmuschko.docker-remote-api plugin (that again depends on java library com.github.docker-java:docker-java:2.1.1).

So I tried with the following gradle.build file

apply plugin: 'groovy'
apply plugin: 'maven'
apply plugin: 'com.bmuschko.docker-remote-api'

buildscript {
  repositories {
        jcenter()
    }

    dependencies {
        classpath 'com.bmuschko:gradle-docker-plugin:2.6.1'
    }
}

group = 'com.example'
version = '1.0'

dependencies {
    compile gradleApi()
    compile localGroovy()
    compile group: 'com.github.docker-java', name: 'docker-java', version: '2.1.1'
}

and the following plugin file:

package com.example.build

import org.gradle.api.Project
import org.gradle.api.Plugin

import com.bmuschko.gradle.docker.tasks.image.DockerBuildImage
class BndPlugin implements Plugin<Project> {

    @Override
    void apply(Project project) {
        task buildDockerImage(type: DockerBuildImage) {
            println file("${projectDir}/docker/")
        }
    }
}

but what I get with gradle build is just the error

unable to resolve class com.bmuschko.gradle.docker.tasks.image.DockerBuildImage

Question:

how to properly manage custom plugin's dependencies?

---

You can get the full plugin project on github.

Answer 1

If you're going to use classes from the plugin, as opposed to just applying it, you should also include the plugin binaries as compile dependency in your lower dependencies section.