Chapter 2. Gradle Tasks

Inside of a Gradle build file, the fundamental unit of build activity is the task. Tasks are named collections of build instructions that Gradle executes as it performs a build. You’ve already seen examples of tasks in Chapter 1, and they may seem like a familiar abstraction compared to other build systems, but Gradle provides a richer model than you may be used to. Rather than bare declarations of build activity tied together with dependencies, Gradle tasks are first-class objects available to you to program if you desire.

Let’s take a look at the different ways of defining a task, the two key aspects of task definitions, and the task API we can use to perform our own customization.