Gradle Language Server by Bitno

A lightweight, private and secure Gradle language server for VS Code.

Early development: this extension is still being built. Expect missing features, rough edges and breaking changes between versions.

Lightweight, private and secure by design

Built by a developer, for developers.

• Lightweight: syntax errors, the outline and Gradle's API work from the script's parser and your wrapper's Gradle distribution, without running Gradle. Gradle loads a build in the background only once you open one of its scripts, and again when one of its build files changes.
• Private: no telemetry, no account. When you open one of a build's scripts, Gradle loads the build as ./gradlew would, without asking: it downloads your wrapper's distribution if it isn't there yet, fetches your build's plugins and their sources, and Groovy's sources if your build has a Groovy script, and resolves your dependencies' versions (their POMs and BOMs, never their jars), from the repositories your build declares. If your wrapper's distribution has no sources (-bin), the server also downloads Gradle's sources the first time they're needed, once per Gradle version, from the server your wrapper's distributionUrl names. Nothing else is contacted.
• Secure: error messages never show an exception's text or Gradle's output; the details go to the server's log. Gradle's sources are kept only when they match Gradle's published SHA-256. Loading a build runs its scripts as ./gradlew would, but no tasks, so open builds you trust.

Supported

• Groovy DSL: build.gradle, settings.gradle, init.gradle and other *.gradle scripts
• Kotlin DSL: build.gradle.kts, settings.gradle.kts and other *.gradle.kts scripts
• Gradle: 9.0 or newer, the version the build's wrapper names

Features

• Syntax errors as you type, from Groovy's and Kotlin's own parsers
• Completion of the blocks, properties and methods a script can use where you type, for the build's own Gradle version
• What the build's plugins add: extensions such as java {} and kotlin {}, configurations such as implementation(...), tasks and ext properties
• Version catalogs: libs. accessors complete, also in plugins { alias(...) }, and hover shows an entry's coordinates and version
• libs.versions.toml: tables, entries' keys, version.ref versions and bundles' libraries complete, and hover shows how scripts read an entry and what it loads
• Plugin ids in plugins { id("…") }: Gradle's core plugins and those on the script's classpath
• Hover with the member's signature, what a block configures and links to Gradle's Javadoc
• Javadoc in hover and completion, from Gradle's sources and plugins' sources
• Go to definition in Gradle's sources and in plugins' sources, both downloaded in the background the first time they're needed
• Outline and folding of a script's blocks
• gradle.properties and gradle-wrapper.properties: Gradle's keys and their values complete, and hover describes them
• A status bar icon that spins while the server loads a build or downloads sources, with a notification when that takes longer than 10 seconds, and what it's doing, what failed, its state and its Java when you hover it
• Syntax highlighting for Kotlin DSL scripts, which VS Code doesn't color on its own
• Gradle's names colored by what they are, in both DSLs: blocks, properties, methods, configurations and tasks

Coming soon

• Warnings for unknown blocks and properties

Requirements

• VS Code 1.145 or later.
• A Gradle build with a wrapper whose distribution has been downloaded, which happens the first time you run ./gradlew.
• Eclipse Temurin 27 in ~/.jdks, which the Java Language Server by Bitno downloads there, or JAVA_HOME set to a Java 27 JDK. The server runs on it; your build can use any Java version Gradle supports.

Getting started

Open a folder with a Gradle build and open one of its scripts. Syntax errors and Gradle's API work at once; what the build's plugins add appears once Gradle has configured the build in the background, and again after you save a script.