Gradle task should not execute automatically

Question

I'm defining a task in gradle:

task releaseCandidate(type: Exec) {     commandLine 'git', 'checkout', 'develop'      // Increment version code in Manifest     String manifest = new File('AndroidManifest.xml').getText('UTF-8')     Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile('android:versionCode="([0-9]+)"')     Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(manifest)     matcher.find()     int newVersionCode = Integer.parseInt(matcher.group(1)) + 1     manifest = manifest.replaceAll(         "android:versionCode=\"([0-9]+)\"", "android:versionCode=\"$newVersionCode\""     )     new File('AndroidManifest.xml').write(manifest, 'UTF-8')      commandLine 'git', 'diff' } 

Which I want to execute only when I explicitly call it as gradle releaseCandidate. However, when I run any other task, such as gradle assembleDebug, it also runs task releaseCandidate. I don't want that behaviour to happen. There is no task depending on releaseCandidate or vice-versa.

My project is an Android app, so I am using android gradle plugin.

Answer 1

A common pitfall. Add an action to the task otherwise code will run at configuration phase. Sample task with action:

task sample << { } 

As I see You'd rather need to write a custom task than using Exec type. I suppose it's not valid to define commandLine twice.

EDIT

You can read this post to get the general idea how it all works.