Android Gradle Logic

Android Gradle Build Logic

Centralise build configuration in reusable Convention Plugins inside a build-logic/ composite build, so each module's build.gradle.kts collapses to plugins { alias(libs.plugins.myapp.android.library) } plus a namespace.

The canonical worked example is nowinandroid's build-logic/ — start from it rather than hand-rolling. This skill covers the wiring detail that is easy to get wrong, plus the AGP 9 deltas.

The wiring gotcha

build-logic does NOT inherit the root version catalog — recreate it. A composite build has its own settings.gradle.kts; the root libs catalog is invisible inside build-logic until you declare it. Without this the convention plugins can't reference libs.* and fail to compile with Unresolved reference: libs:

// build-logic/settings.gradle.kts
dependencyResolutionManagement {
    versionCatalogs {
        create("libs") { from(files("../gradle/libs.versions.toml")) }
    }
}

Applying the plugins from the catalog

Declare the convention-plugin ids in [plugins] so modules can apply them by alias. The id must match the one you register(...) in build-logic — a mismatch is the usual cause of an alias that won't resolve:

# gradle/libs.versions.toml
[plugins]
myapp-android-application = { id = "myapp.android.application" }
myapp-android-library     = { id = "myapp.android.library" }
myapp-android-compose     = { id = "myapp.android.compose" }

A version is not required for a locally-registered plugin — the included build supplies it, so the alias resolves whatever the catalog does or doesn't declare. nowinandroid writes version = "unspecified" explicitly, which is fine and self-documenting, just not load-bearing.

Set shared configuration — compileSdk / minSdk / Compose / the JVM toolchain — once inside the convention plugins rather than per module. For a Kotlin Android module kotlin { jvmToolchain(21) } is the idiomatic one-liner, and it sets the toolchain for both Kotlin and Java compilation:

kotlin { jvmToolchain(21) }

AGP 9 Implications

The convention plugin pattern above targets AGP 8. AGP 9 changes several things that hit build logic directly: it drops the standalone org.jetbrains.kotlin.android plugin (Kotlin is built into com.android.application / com.android.library), removes BaseExtension and the old variant APIs (applicationVariants → androidComponents { onVariants { … } }), moves kotlinOptions {} to a top-level kotlin { compilerOptions { … } }, and makes kapt incompatible (migrate to KSP). Any convention plugin that touches these needs updating.

Defer to the dedicated migration skills for the mechanics rather than duplicating the steps here: Google's agp-9-upgrade for pure-Android projects, JetBrains' kotlin-tooling-agp9-migration for KMP, and this repo's gradle-build-performance skill for the kapt → KSP step.

Checklist

• build-logic included as a composite build (includeBuild("build-logic")) in the root settings.gradle.kts
• build-logic/settings.gradle.kts recreates the libs catalog via from(files("../gradle/libs.versions.toml"))
• Convention plugins register-ed with stable ids, and the [plugins] alias ids match them exactly
• compileSdk / minSdk / Compose / JVM toolchain set once in the plugins, not per module