What's coming up in Gradle 9.0

Gradle 9 is the next major Gradle Build Tool release we are currently working on. The target release date for the public release of Gradle 9.0.0 is the second quarter of 2025. Soon, we plan to ship the first milestone and release candidate builds. Stay tuned!

Gradle 9.0 banner

Scope

In Gradle 9. Our focus remains on improving build comprehensibility and scalability. As outlined on our public roadmap, the key initiatives include:

Promoting Configuration Cache as the preferred way of execution. See this blogpost with the overview of our plans - roadmap #75.
Clean and actionable reporting. This includes strengthening the Problems API, which is expected to be promoted to a GA feature in one of the 9.x minor releases - roadmap #49.
Upgrading to Kotlin 2 and the K2 compiler - roadmap #63.
Updating embedded Groovy and Groovy DSL Language to Groovy 4 - roadmap #16.
Increasing the minimum required Java version to 17 - roadmap #108.
Removing deprecated APIs, following our deprecation policy.

The detailed overviews for the mentioned changes are coming up soon. For now, you can check out the Road to Gradle 9 with Louis Jacomet blogpost, and watch the webinar recording from September 2024. Note that there have been changes in the scope and deliverables since the webinar, see below.

Excluded / Delayed features

Provider API Migration

The Provider API migration is an effort to embrace lazy configuration, and to make APIs for Kotlin DSL and Groovy DSL consistent.

On March 28, 2025, we decided to exclude the Provider API migration from the Gradle 9.0 scope. Part of the reason for that delay is the Provider API migration. Based on early feedback, we also confirmed that better IDE support is essential to make this migration successful for users. This IDE support requires both enhancements within Gradle and corresponding adoption of those changes in IntelliJ IDEA and Android Studio.

We remain committed to the Provider API migration and are actively working to complete the remaining unmigrated properties, with an aspirational goal of including it in Gradle 10, targeted for 2026.

Incubation status of Isolated Projects

Isolated Projects is a pre-alpha Gradle feature that builds on the Configuration Cache to further improve performance, particularly during Android Studio and IntelliJ IDEA sync. While some sources announced that Isolated Projects would be incubating in Gradle 9.0, the actual plan is to promote the feature in a later Gradle 9.x release.

As of now, work on Isolated Projects is on the back burner, with priority given to productizing the Configuration Cache and completing other features planned for Gradle 9. There is currently no defined target release for promoting Isolated Projects to incubation.

Timeline

The target release date for the public release of Gradle 9.0 is the second quarter of 2025. The first milestone release and the release candidates are planned for early 2025.

Learn More

You can find more details in the Road to Gradle 9 blog post by Louis Jacomet. For a more detailed overview, including demos, see the Devoxx Belgium presentation by Louis and Alex Semin (video).