A configuration has an incoming dependencies property. What are these dependencies? The docs define the property recursively and it’s not quite clear form the source.
You appear to be asking a high-level question, as opposed to a question about a particular property, so I’ll aim my answer that way.
Referring to them as “incoming dependencies” is somewhat redundant. They are simply dependencies of the configuration. Gradle ensures that the cached copy of each dependency is up to date.
If you just browse the User Guide PDF for “dependency” and the rarer “incoming”, and read the sections found, you should get a better understanding.
On the other hand, if you’re asking about the mechanics of a specific property, you’ll have to clarify your question.
Maybe a more explicit way of asking my question is, “what is the difference between an ‘incoming dependency’ and a dependency?”. A configuration is a file collection of dependencies. It has a ‘dependencies’ property listing its dependencies. It also has an incoming property listing the “incoming dependencies”. Are you saying ‘configuration.dependencies == configuration.incoming’?
I’m seeing now that incoming dependencies are resolvable while the dependencies are not. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.