# Gradle Release Notes

We are excited to announce Gradle 9.8.0-milestone-2 (released 2026-08-24).

This release features 1, 2, ... n, and more.

We would like to thank the following community members for their contributions to this release of Gradle: Julian Krannich.

Be sure to check out the public roadmap for insight into what's planned for future releases.

## Table Of Contents

## Upgrade instructions

Switch your build to use Gradle 9.8.0-milestone-2 by updating the wrapper in your project:

    ./gradlew :wrapper --gradle-version=9.8.0-milestone-2 && ./gradlew :wrapper

See the Gradle 9.x upgrade guide to learn about deprecations, breaking changes, and other considerations when upgrading to Gradle 9.8.0-milestone-2.

For Java, Groovy, Kotlin, and Android compatibility, see the full compatibility notes.

## New features and usability improvements

### Support for Java 27

With this release, Gradle supports Java 27.

You can now run the Gradle daemon on Java 27, in addition to using it via toolchains:

    java {
        toolchain {
            languageVersion = JavaLanguageVersion.of(27)
        }
    }

Some third-party tools (for example, PMD) do not yet support Java 27.

See the compatibility documentation for more details.

### Configuration Cache improvements

Gradle provides a Configuration Cache that improves build time by caching the result of the configuration phase and reusing it for subsequent builds.

#### TestKit API for asserting the Configuration Cache outcome

Plugin authors testing Configuration Cache compatibility with TestKit previously had to parse console output to tell whether a cache entry was stored, reused, or discarded — an approach that broke whenever the wording of the console messages changed.

The `BuildResult` now exposes the outcome directly:

    def result = GradleRunner.create()
        .withProjectDir(projectDir)
        .withArguments("myTask", "--configuration-cache")
        .build()

    assert result.configurationCacheOutcome == ConfigurationCacheOutcome.STORED

See `ConfigurationCacheOutcome` for the possible outcomes.

The outcome is also available to any Tooling API client through a new `CONFIGURATION_CACHE` progress event type.

See the Testing with the Configuration Cache section in the Gradle User Manual for more details.

### Test reporting and execution

Gradle provides a set of features and abstractions for testing JVM code, along with test reports to display results.

### CLI, logging, and problem reporting

Gradle provides an intuitive command-line interface, detailed logs, and a structured problems report that helps developers quickly identify and resolve build issues.

### Build authoring improvements

Gradle provides rich APIs for build engineers and plugin authors, enabling the creation of custom, reusable build logic and better maintainability.

#### Look up Gradle services from scripts and task actions

Build, settings, and init scripts, as well as task actions, can now look up commonly used Gradle services directly, without declaring an `@Inject` point or going through the `objects.newInstance(...)` ceremony:

    tasks.register("cleanReports") {
        val fs = service<FileSystemOperations>()
        doLast {
            fs.delete { delete("build/reports") }
        }
    }

Use `service(Class)` in the Groovy DSL or `service<Type>()` in the Kotlin DSL. It is compatible with the Configuration Cache and Isolated Projects, and covers `ObjectFactory`, `ProviderFactory`, `FileSystemOperations`, and `ArchiveOperations` in every scope, `ProjectLayout` in projects and tasks, `BuildLayout` in settings, and `ExecOperations` in task actions. In the Kotlin and Java DSLs, looking up a service that is not available in the current scope is caught at compile time.

Precompiled script plugins that use `service<Type>()` require Gradle 9.8 or later at runtime.

See the Looking up services in scripts section in the Gradle User Manual for more details.

#### Lazy destination directory for `Copy` and `Sync`

The `Copy` and `Sync` tasks only exposed the destination as `destinationDir`, a plain `File` property, so a destination derived from a provider had to be resolved eagerly at configuration time. Both tasks now expose a `destinationDirectory` `DirectoryProperty`:

    tasks.register<Copy>("copyFiles") {
        from("src")
        destinationDirectory = layout.buildDirectory.dir("out")
    }

The property is the single source of truth for the destination. Assigning it is equivalent to calling `into(...)`, and it reflects whatever was configured through `into(...)` or `destinationDir`.

`into(...)` now wires a `Provider` destination into `destinationDirectory` instead of resolving its value, so provider-based destinations stay lazy; all other notations (`String`, `File`, `Closure`, `Callable`, ...) keep their existing lazy resolution. Since `destinationDirectory` is a task output property, other tasks can consume it directly and pick up the task dependency.

The new property is incubating. `destinationDir` continues to work and will be deprecated once `destinationDirectory` is promoted.

See `Copy.destinationDirectory` and `Sync.destinationDirectory` in the DSL Reference for more details.

### Platform and toolchain management

Gradle provides comprehensive support for Native development and JVM languages, featuring automated Toolchains for seamless JDK management.

#### Groovydoc supports modern Java sources and Groovy 6 output options

The `Groovydoc` task now exposes configuration options that had previously only been available through the Groovy CLI, Ant task, or Maven plugin, closing a long-standing gap in Gradle's Groovydoc support.

Java source parsing level: Groovydoc uses JavaParser to read Java sources mixed into Groovy projects. When the parser's assumed language level is older than the sources, modern constructs — switch expressions, sealed classes, records, and similar — fail to parse, and the affected classes are silently omitted from the generated documentation. The new `javaVersion` property forwards the language level to Groovydoc so those sources parse cleanly:

    tasks.groovydoc {
        javaVersion = JavaLanguageVersion.of(21)
    }

This option requires Groovy 4.0.27 or later and is silently ignored on earlier Groovy versions.

Groovy 6.0.0 documentation options: For projects using Groovy 6.0.0 or later, several new properties are now available on the `Groovydoc` task to control the generated output:

Property | Purpose
--- | ---
`showInternal` | Include members annotated with `groovy.transform.Internal` (GEP-17).
`noIndex` | Suppress the alphabetical index page.
`noDeprecatedList` | Suppress the deprecated-list page.
`noHelp` | Suppress the help page.
`syntaxHighlighter` | Select the client-side syntax highlighter (`"prism"` or `"none"`).
`theme` | Lock the palette (`"auto"`, `"light"`, or `"dark"`).
`preLanguage` | Default language id applied to unclassified `<pre>` code blocks.
`additionalStylesheets` | Extra stylesheets copied alongside the default.

All of these are silently ignored on earlier Groovy versions, so they are safe to configure in builds that may be run against multiple Groovy releases.

All new properties are incubating.

See the `Groovydoc` task in the DSL Reference for the full list of configuration options.

### Core plugin and plugin authoring enhancements

Gradle provides a comprehensive plugin system, including built-in Core Plugins for standard tasks and powerful APIs for creating custom plugins.

### Security and infrastructure

Gradle provides robust security features and underlying infrastructure to ensure that builds are secure, reproducible, and easy to maintain.

### Tooling and IDE integration

Gradle provides Tooling APIs that facilitate deep integration with modern IDEs and CI/CD pipelines.

### General improvements

Gradle provides various incremental updates and performance optimizations to ensure the continued reliability of the build ecosystem.

#### Improved performance on Windows machines with slow system clocks

Gradle reads the system clock frequently while a build runs, to capture execution traces, progress events, and log messages. On most machines, querying the time is inexpensive. However, on some Windows systems, particularly virtualized ones, reading the clock is much slower, and the increased cost can accumulate over the many readings taken during a single build invocation.

Gradle now detects these slow system clocks at startup and switches to a faster source of time for the remainder of the build. On affected machines we have measured build time improvements of up to 45%.

Builds on machines with a normal system clock are unaffected, and no change to configuration is required.

#### Faster Maven publishing with up-to-date POM generation

The `GenerateMavenPom` task was previously marked as untracked, so it executed on every build regardless of whether the underlying POM had changed.

The task now declares each part of its source POM as a task input, so it participates in up-to-date checks:

    $ ./gradlew generatePomFileForMavenPublication
    > Task :generatePomFileForMavenPublication UP-TO-DATE

    BUILD SUCCESSFUL

When a `withXml` action is registered, task input tracking remains disabled, as `withXml` actions do not yet support snapshotting, so the task continues to run on every build. To restore up-to-date behavior, move the customization into the DSL properties on `MavenPom` where possible.

See the Generate POM task section in the Gradle User Manual for more details.

## Promoted features

Promoted features are features that were incubating in previous versions of Gradle but are now supported and subject to backward compatibility. See the User Manual section on the "Feature Lifecycle" for more information.

The following are the features that have been promoted in this Gradle release.

## Documentation and training

## Fixed issues

## Known issues

Known issues are problems that were discovered post-release that are directly related to changes made in this release.

## External contributions

We love getting contributions from the Gradle community. For information on contributing, please see gradle.org/contribute.

## Reporting problems

If you find a problem with this release, please file a bug on GitHub Issues adhering to our issue guidelines. If you're not sure if you're encountering a bug, please use the forum.

We hope you will build happiness with Gradle, and we look forward to your feedback via Twitter or on GitHub.