Dependency management with Gradle

Useful Links
Guide to build.gradle
libGDX Dependencies
Available libGDX extensions
External Dependencies
Adding Repositories
Mavenizing Local Dependencies
File Dependencies
- Android pitfall
Declaring Dependencies with HTML
libGDX Extension Inherits
Dependency Management for Libraries

Useful links

Dependency management with Gradle is easy to understand, and has many different approaches. If you are familiar with Maven or Ivy, Gradle is fully compatible with both approaches, as well as being able to support custom approaches. If you aren’t familiar with Gradle, there are great resources on their site to learn, it is recommended you give them a read to get comfortable with Gradle.

Guide to build.gradle

Gradle projects are managed by build.gradle files in their root directory. If you have used the gdx-setup.jar to build your libGDX project you will notice the structure: Structure Example

The root directory, and each sub directory contains a build.gradle file, for clarity we will define the dependencies in the root directory’s build.gradle file. (Note it can be done in each of the build.gradle scripts in the sub directories, it is just cleaner and easier to follow when it is handled all in one place)

Here is a small section of the default buildscript that is generated from the setup:

Full script you will see will differ slightly depending on what other modules you have

//Configuration for the script itself (aka, listing the dependencies of the script that lists dependencies - InSCRIPTion!)
buildscript {
    //Defines the repositories required by this script, e.g. hosting the android plugin
    repositories {
        //local maven repository (advanced use)
        mavenLocal()
        //maven central repository, needed for the android plugin
        mavenCentral()
        gradlePluginPortal()
        //snapshot repository (in case this script depends on snapshot/prerelease artifacts)
        maven { url "https://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/snapshots/" }
        google()
    }
    //Defines the artifacts this script depends on, e.g. the android plugin
    dependencies {
        //Adds the android gradle plugin as a dependency of this buildscript
        classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:7.2.2'
    }
}

//Configuration common to all projects (:core, :desktop and :android in this example)
allprojects {
    //Defines gradle plugins used by all projects.
    //A plugin extends gradle with additional tasks, configurations, etc., with defaults set according to conventions.
    apply plugin: "eclipse"
    apply plugin: "idea"

    //Version of your game
    version = "1.0"
    //Defines 'extra' (custom) properties for all projects
    ext {
        appName = "the-name-of-your-game"
        //Versions of the libGDX dependencies (used further below on those 'compile' lines)
        gdxVersion = '1.12.0'
        roboVMVersion = '2.3.19'
        box2DLightsVersion = '1.5'
        ashleyVersion = '1.7.4'
        aiVersion = '1.8.2'
        gdxControllersVersion = '2.2.1'
    }

    //Defines all repositories needed for all projects
    repositories {
        mavenLocal()
        mavenCentral()
        maven { url "https://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/snapshots/" }
        maven { url "https://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/releases/" }
        maven { url "https://jitpack.io" }
    }
}

//Configuration for the :desktop project
project(":desktop") {
    //Uses the java-library plugin (provides compiling, execution, etc.).
    //That one is bundled with gradle, so we didn’t have to define it in the buildscript section.
    apply plugin: "java-library"

    //Defines dependencies for the :desktop project
    dependencies {
        //Adds dependency on the :core project as well as the gdx lwjgl backend and native dependencies
        implementation project(":core")
        api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-backend-lwjgl3:$gdxVersion"
        api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-desktop"
    }
}

//Configuration for the :android project
project(":android") {
    //Uses the android gradle plugin (provides compiling, copying on device, etc.)
    apply plugin: "com.android.application"

    configurations { natives }

    //Defines dependencies for the :android project
    dependencies {
        //Adds dependencies on the :core project as well as the android backends and all platform natives.
        //Note the 'natives' classifier in this project.
        implementation project(":core")
        api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-backend-android:$gdxVersion"
        natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-armeabi-v7a"
        natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-arm64-v8a"
        natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-x86"
        natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-x86_64"
    }
}

//Configuration for the :core project
project(":core") {
    //Uses the java-library gradle plugin
    apply plugin: "java-library"

    dependencies {
        //Defines dependencies for the :core project, in this example the gdx dependency
        api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx:$gdxVersion"
    }
}

libGDX Dependencies

Dependencies are configured in the root build.gradle file as shown in the build.gradle guide above. In order to add an external dependency to a project, you must declare the dependency correctly under the correct part of the build.script.

(Some) libGDX extensions are mavenized and pushed to the maven repo, which means we can very easily pull them into our projects from the build.gradle file. You can see in the list below of the format that these dependencies take. If you are familiar with maven, notice the format:

compile '<groupId>:<artifactId>:<version>:<classifier>'

Let’s take a quick example to see how this works with the root build.gradle file.

As mentioned earlier, you do not need to modify the individual build.gradle files in each of the different platform-specific folders (e.g., -desktop, -ios, -core). You only need to modify the root build.gradle file.

Here we see the dependencies for the FreeType Extension, say we want our Android project to have this dependency. We locate our project(":android") stub in the root directory’s build.gradle:

project(":android") {
    apply plugin: "com.android.application"

    configurations { natives }

    dependencies {
        implementation project(":core")
        api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-backend-android:$gdxVersion"
        natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-armeabi-v7a"
        natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-arm64-v8a"
        natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-x86"
        natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-x86_64"
    }
}

We know our FreeType extension has declarations:

api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-freetype:$gdxVersion"
natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-freetype-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-armeabi-v7a"
natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-freetype-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-arm64-v8a"
natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-freetype-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-x86"
natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-freetype-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-x86_64"

So all we need to do is whack it in the dependencies stub

project(":android") {
    apply plugin: "com.android.application"

    configurations { natives }

    dependencies {
        implementation project(":core")
        api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-backend-android:$gdxVersion"
        natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-armeabi-v7a"
        natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-arm64-v8a"
        natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-x86"
        natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-x86_64"

        api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-freetype:$gdxVersion"
        natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-freetype-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-armeabi-v7a"
        natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-freetype-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-arm64-v8a"
        natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-freetype-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-x86"
        natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-freetype-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-x86_64"
    }
}

And we are done, our android project now has the freetype dependency. After this you will need to refresh your dependencies. Easy eh.

libGDX Extensions

Mavenized libGDX extensions ready to import from the build.gradle script include:

Box2D
Bullet
FreeTypeFont
Controllers
Tools
Box2DLights
Ashley
AI

Box2D Gradle

Core Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-box2d:$gdxVersion"

Desktop Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-box2d-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-desktop"

Android Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-box2d:$gdxVersion"
natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-box2d-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-armeabi-v7a"
natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-box2d-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-arm64-v8a"
natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-box2d-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-x86"
natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-box2d-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-x86_64"

iOS Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-box2d-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-ios"

HTML Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-box2d:$gdxVersion:sources"
api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-box2d-gwt:$gdxVersion:sources"

and in ./html/src/yourgamedomain/GdxDefinition*.gwt.xml add <inherits name="com.badlogic.gdx.physics.box2d.box2d-gwt"/>

Bullet Gradle

Core Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-bullet:$gdxVersion"

Desktop Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-bullet-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-desktop"

Android Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-bullet:$gdxVersion"
natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-bullet-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-armeabi-v7a"
natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-bullet-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-arm64-v8a"
natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-bullet-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-x86"
natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-bullet-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-x86_64"

iOS Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-bullet-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-ios"

HTML Dependency: Not compatible!

FreeTypeFont Gradle

Core Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-freetype:$gdxVersion"

Desktop Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-freetype-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-desktop"

Android Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-freetype:$gdxVersion"
natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-freetype-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-armeabi-v7a"
natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-freetype-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-arm64-v8a"
natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-freetype-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-x86"
natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-freetype-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-x86_64"

iOS Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-freetype-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-ios"

iOS-MOE Dependency:

natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-freetype-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-ios"

HTML Dependency: Not compatible!

Controllers Gradle

Core Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.gdx-controllers:gdx-controllers-core:$gdxControllersVersion"

Desktop Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.gdx-controllers:gdx-controllers-desktop:$gdxControllersVersion"

Android Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.gdx-controllers:gdx-controllers-android:$gdxControllersVersion"

iOS Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.gdx-controllers:gdx-controllers-ios:$gdxControllersVersion"

HTML Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.gdx-controllers:gdx-controllers-core:$gdxControllersVersion:sources"
api "com.badlogicgames.gdx-controllers:gdx-controllers-gwt:$gdxControllersVersion"
api "com.badlogicgames.gdx-controllers:gdx-controllers-gwt:$gdxControllersVersion:sources"

and in ./html/src/yourgamedomain/GdxDefinition*.gwt.xml add <inherits name='com.badlogic.gdx.controllers' /> and <inherits name='com.badlogic.gdx.controllers.controllers-gwt' />

Tools Gradle

Core Dependency: Don’t put me in core!

Desktop Dependency (LWJGL2 only):

api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-tools:$gdxVersion"

Android Dependency: Not compatible!

iOS Dependency: Not compatible!

HTML Dependency: Not compatible!

Box2DLights Gradle

Note: this extension also requires the Box2D extension

Core Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.box2dlights:box2dlights:$box2DLightsVersion"

Android Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.box2dlights:box2dlights:$box2DLightsVersion"

HTML Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.box2dlights:box2dlights:$box2DLightsVersion:sources"

and in ./html/src/yourgamedomain/GdxDefinition*.gwt.xml add <inherits name="Box2DLights"/>

Ashley Gradle

Note: This extension release cycle is not dependent on the main libGDX library, and so it is not unusual to have a new version published between two libGDX releases. If you want to pull in a new (or different) version, check https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/badlogicgames/ashley/ashley/ and change the ashleyVersion value in the ext section.

Core Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.ashley:ashley:$ashleyVersion"

Android Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.ashley:ashley:$ashleyVersion"

HTML Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.ashley:ashley:$ashleyVersion:sources"

and in ./html/src/yourgamedomain/GdxDefinition*.gwt.xml add <inherits name='com.badlogic.ashley_gwt' />

AI Gradle

Note: This extension release cycle is not dependent on the main libGDX library, and so it is not unusual to have a new version published between two libGDX releases. If you want to pull in a new (or different) version, check https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/badlogicgames/gdx/gdx-ai/ and change the aiVersion value in the ext section.

Core Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-ai:$aiVersion"

Android Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-ai:$aiVersion"

HTML Dependency:

api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-ai:$aiVersion:sources"

and in ./html/src/yourgamedomain/GdxDefinition*.gwt.xml add <inherits name='com.badlogic.gdx.ai' />

External Dependencies

Adding external repositories

Gradle finds files defined as dependencies by looking through all the repositories defined in the buildscript. Gradle understands several repository formats, which include Maven and Ivy.

Under the allprojects stub, you can see how repositories are defined. Here is an example:

allprojects {    
    repositories {
        mavenCentral() // Maven Central repo
        mavenLocal() // local Maven repo
        maven { url "https://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/snapshots/" } // remote Maven repo: Sonatype snapshots
        maven { url "https://jitpack.io" } // remote Maven repo: Jitpack
    }
}

Adding Dependencies

External dependencies are identified by their group, name, version and sometimes classifier attributes.

dependencies {
    implementation group: 'com.badlogicgames.gdx', name: 'gdx', version: '1.0-SNAPSHOT', classifier: 'natives-desktop'
}

Gradle allows you to use shortcuts when defining external dependencies, the above configuration is the same as:

dependencies {
    implementation 'com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx:1.0-SNAPSHOT:natives-desktop'
}

Mavenizing Local Dependencies

If you would prefer to use maven repositories to manage local .jar files, these two commands will take any local .jar file and install them (and their source) to your local maven repository.

mvn install:install-file -Dfile=<path-to-file> -DgroupId=<group-id> -DartifactId=<artifact-id> -Dversion=<version> -Dpackaging=<packaging>

mvn install:install-file -Dfile=<path-to-source-file> -DgroupId=<group-id> -DartifactId=<artifact-id> -Dversion=<version> -Dpackaging=<packaging> -Dclassifier=sources

To then set up gradle to include your new dependency, edit your build.gradle file in the root project directory and edit the core project entry:

project(":core") {
   ...

    dependencies {
        ...
        implementation "<group-id>:<artifact-id>:<version>"
        implementation "<group-id>:<artifact-id>:<version>:sources"
    }
}

After this you will need to refresh your dependencies for your IDE to see, so run:
Command line - $ ./gradlew --refresh-dependencies
Eclipse - $ ./gradlew eclipse
IntelliJ - $ ./gradlew idea

Also, don’t forget that any dependencies added this way also need to be included in the GWT inheritance file.

File Dependencies

If you have a dependency that is not mavenized, you can still depend on them!

To do this, in your project stub in the root build.gradle file, locate the dependencies { } section as always, and add the following:

dependencies {
    implementation fileTree(dir: 'libs', include: '*.jar')
}

This will include all the .jar files in the libs directory as dependencies.

NOTE: “dir” is relative to the project root, if you add the dependencies to your android project, ‘libs’ would need to be in the android/ directory. If you added the dependencies in the core project, ‘libs’ would need to be in the core/ directory.

An example with a more complete script:

project(":android") {
    apply plugin: "android"

    configurations { natives }

    dependencies {
        implementation project(":core")
        api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-backend-android:$gdxVersion"
        natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-armeabi-v7a"
        natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-arm64-v8a"
        natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-x86"
        natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-x86_64"

        api "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-freetype:$gdxVersion"
        natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-freetype-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-armeabi-v7a"
        natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-freetype-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-arm64-v8a"
        natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-freetype-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-x86"
        natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-freetype-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-x86_64"
        implementation fileTree(dir: 'libs', include: '*.jar')
    }
}

It is worth nothing that these file dependencies are not included in the published dependency descriptor for your project, but they are included in transitive project dependencies within the same build.

Android Pitfall

When adding flat file dependencies to a project, for example the core project, you would need to duplicate the dependency declaration for the android project. This is because the Android Gradle plugin currently can’t handle transitive flat file dependencies.

For example, if you were to add the all the jars in your libs directory as dependencies for your project, you would need to do the following.

project(":core") {
   ...
   implementation fileTree(dir: '../libs', include: '*.jar')
   ...
}

// And also

project(":android") {
   ...
   implementation fileTree(dir: '../libs', include: '*.jar')
   ...
}

This is only required for the android project, all other projects inherit flat file dependencies OK.

Gwt Inheritance

Gwt is special, so in order to let the GWT compiler know what modules the project depends on, and inherits from, you need to let it know.

This is done in the gwt.xml files in the gwt sub directory. You will need to make the changes both to the GdxDefinition.gwt.xml and also the GdxDefinitionSuperdev.gwt.xml.

The default gwt.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE module PUBLIC "-//Google Inc.//DTD Google Web Toolkit trunk//EN" "http://google-web-toolkit.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/distro-source/core/src/gwt-module.dtd">
<module rename-to="html">
	<inherits name='com.badlogic.gdx.backends.gdx_backends_gwt' />
	<inherits name='MyGameName' />
	<entry-point class='com.badlogic.mygame.client.HtmlLauncher' />

	<set-configuration-property name="gdx.assetpath" value="../android/assets" />
</module>

We depend on the libGDX gwt backend, as well as the core project, so we have them defined in a tag. So when you add your dependency via methods above, you need to add it here too!

libGDX Extension Inherits

These are the libGDX extensions that are supported in gwt

libGDX Core - <inherits name='com.badlogic.gdx.backends.gdx_backends_gwt' />
Box2d - <inherits name='com.badlogic.gdx.physics.box2d.box2d-gwt' />
Box2dLights - <inherits name='Box2DLights' />
Controllers - <inherits name='com.badlogic.gdx.controllers' /> and <inherits name='com.badlogic.gdx.controllers.controllers-gwt' />
Ashley - <inherits name='com.badlogic.ashley_gwt' />
AI - <inherits name='com.badlogic.gdx.ai' />

Dependency management for libraries

If you’re creating a library that people can include in their projects via gradle, you might need to replace the implementation keyword by api. Any dependency of your library that you declare with api will be visible and usable by others that depend on your library while implementation makes it only accessible for you.

© 2024 libGDX • This wiki is a community effort. If you find information out of date or want to add some more in-depth explanations, you are very welcome to do the necessary changes. Before contributing, please take a look at our Wiki Style Guide.

If you need additional help, check out our community on Discord!

Contents

Useful links

Guide to build.gradle

libGDX Dependencies

libGDX Extensions

Box2D Gradle

Bullet Gradle

FreeTypeFont Gradle

Controllers Gradle

Tools Gradle

Box2DLights Gradle

Ashley Gradle

AI Gradle

External Dependencies

Adding external repositories

Adding Dependencies

Mavenizing Local Dependencies

File Dependencies

Android Pitfall

Gwt Inheritance

libGDX Extension Inherits

Dependency management for libraries