What is smallest Gradle distribution for deployment/plugin dependency management?

I am looking at possible breaking apart a large distribution into core+downloadable modules. The project is Java-based, so the users will have Java (1.7) installed. But possibly nothing else.

So, the idea is to have them download a bootstrap distribution that includes project core + (if it is a good fit) embedded Gradle. Then, use Gradle for plugin management to resolve the dependencies and download what’s needed.

Would that be a suitable use-case for Gradle? And if so, how small can the Gradle get. Some of the libraries it needs are also needed for the project core, but 40Mb extra is still quite a bit. What would be the minimal core required to just do the dependency management and download (possibly with support for Maven repos).

Thank you,

Alex.

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Is there any reason you can’t use the Gradle Wrapper?

Thanks Daz,

That downloads the whole Gradle though, doesn’t it? My question is about the smallest subset of Gradle suitable for my purpose.

Regards,

Alex.

Hey Alexandre, the smallest distribution is the bin distribution at the moment. There are ideas to have smaller distributions in the future with just a subset of plugins, but therefore we need to sort out a better way of distributing plugins first.

cheers, René