ConfigurationsContainer is empty in multi-project setting

I have a multi-project setting in my Android project:

- android
  - app
  - lib1
  - util

In util I defined a configuration:

task createTestJar(type: Jar) {
   classifier = 'test'
   from "$projectDir/build/intermediates/classes/test/debug"
}

configurations {
  archives
  archives.transitive =  true
}
artifacts {
  archives createTestJar
}

And I tried to reference it in lib1:

// doesn't work
testCompile project(path: ':utils', configuration: 'archives')
// says can't find 'archives' in configuration container
 testCompile project(':utils').configurations.archives.artifacts.files
// works if i manually create the jar beforehand
testCompile fileTree(dir: "$rootDir/utils/build/libs", include: ['*.jar'])

I tried to print out what configurations my util module has in lib1:

  project(':shared-utils').configurations.forEach {
   println("${it.name}")
  }  

And I get empty result. When I print it in my util module I can see a long list, with my archives config in it.

Any idea why this happens? I heard there’s some default tasks that comes with the java plugin which android doesn’t have? BTW both lib1 and util has these plugins applied:

apply plugin: 'com.android.library'
apply plugin: 'kotlin-android'

Thanks in advance!!