For testing purposes I copied my root build file (build.gradle), brought in the Nebua Lint plugin and tried run it. The build fails, because it says it cannot find the subproject I gave on the command line. If I use the original build.gradle, it works fine.
That option isn’t compatible with a multi-project build. The --build-file option also implies that you want to treat the build as a single project build, ignoring settings.gradle.
If you want to use a different build file for the multi-project build, you need to use settings.gradle to do it. Create a copy such as lintsettings.gradle that configures the custom build file name:
rootProject.buildFileName = 'lintbuild.gradle'
Now, run your build with the --settings-file option instead of the --build-file option: