How do I create an executable fat JAR with Gradle with implementation dependencies?

Question

I've got a simple project in Gradle 4.6 and would like to make an executable JAR of it. I've tried shadow, gradle-fatjar-plugin, gradle-one-jar, spring-boot-gradle-plugin plugins but neither of them adds my dependencies declared as implementation (I don't have any compile ones). It works with compile e.g. for gradle-one-jar plugin but I would like to have implementation dependencies.

Does this answer your question? Creating runnable JAR with Gradle — Mahozad
– Mahozad, Commented Feb 18, 2022 at 17:10
You tried spring boot? That's the only reasonable option. Without that - expect problems as your project develops. One of the gotchas is repackaging which results in skipping some files. — Jarekczek
– Jarekczek, Commented Mar 28, 2024 at 13:54

Dave Jarvis · Accepted Answer · 2019-03-18 20:59:25Z

130

You can use the following code.

jar { manifest { attributes( 'Main-Class': 'com.package.YourClass' ) } from { configurations.runtimeClasspath.collect { it.isDirectory() ? it : zipTree(it) } } }

Be sure to replace com.package.YourClass with the fully qualified class name containing static void main( String args[] ).

This will pack the runtime dependencies. Check the docs if you need more info.

edited Mar 18, 2019 at 20:59

Dave Jarvis

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answered Mar 14, 2018 at 17:41

miskender

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14 Comments

Vijay Kumar Over a year ago

whats the name of the fat jar and in which dir do I find it?

Shayan Toqraee Over a year ago

@VijayKumar Mine is under build/libs.

Alex Ives Over a year ago

You may want to use configurations.compileClasspath.filter{ it.exists() }.collect { it.isDirectory() ? it : zipTree(it) }. That way if you have non-existant classpath entries it won't get hung up. I'm using Kotlin so the java source classpath entry didn't have anything and it got pretty cranky.

user64141 Over a year ago

When I use this code, all of the library classes are included in the uberjar, but the classes in the source directory aren't.

Gabor Somogyi Over a year ago

Man, you saved me a lot of time. There was a howto on the net but it was buggy :)

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Nicholas DiPiazza · Accepted Answer · 2021-11-12 18:46:56Z

Based on the accepted answer, I needed to add one more line of code:

task fatJar(type: Jar) { manifest { attributes 'Main-Class': 'com.yourpackage.Main' } archiveClassifier = "all" from { configurations.compile.collect { it.isDirectory() ? it : zipTree(it) } configurations.runtimeClasspath.collect { it.isDirectory() ? it : zipTree(it) } } with jar }

Without this additional line, it omitted my source files and only added the dependencies:

configurations.compile.collect { it.isDirectory() ? it : zipTree(it) }

For newer gradle (7+), you may see this error:

Execution failed for task ':fatJar'. > Entry [some entry here] is a duplicate but no duplicate handling strategy has been set. Please refer to https://docs.gradle.org/7.1/dsl/org.gradle.api.tasks.Copy.html#org.gradle.api.tasks.Copy:duplicatesStrategy for details.

If this happens add a duplicatesStrategy such as duplicatesStrategy "exclude" to the fatJar task.

And likewise, for Gradle 7+, you have to just remove the configuration.compile.collect line because it is no longer a valid configuration in this version of gradle.

This worked where all the others didn't for Gradle 6.0.1. Mysteriously, the second line didn't seem to be required in Gradle 4.x, but my old build config suddenly stopped creating fat JARs once upgraded to Gradle 6 or 5.
Gradle 6.5 reports the following warning: The compile configuration has been deprecated for resolution. This will fail with an error in Gradle 7.0. Please resolve the compileClasspath configuration instead. Replacing "compile" by "compileClasspath" fixed it.
Worked perfectly, not sure how you found this but you are doing gods work!!
@jbel Thanks! I stumbled upon it by combining info from another post
Bit of a weird one for me, trying to run a github project (which had been set up with a gradle wrapper) and kept getting "classdefnotfoundexception" errors for dependencies. I checked the gradle.build file in the submodule and found dependencies were being imported using the "implementation" keyword (rather than "compile"). Once I added the "configuration.runtimeClasspath" line for the jar task issues were resolved.

user2297550 · Accepted Answer · 2021-08-19 09:55:19Z

The same task can be achieved using Gradle Kotlin DSL in a similar way:

val jar by tasks.getting(Jar::class) { manifest { attributes["Main-Class"] = "com.package.YourClass" } from(configurations .runtime // .get() // uncomment this on Gradle 6+ // .files .map { if (it.isDirectory) it else zipTree(it) }) }

soloturn · Accepted Answer · 2022-02-12 18:30:25Z

previous answers are a little outdated nowadays, see here for something working with gradle-7.4: How to create a fat JAR with Gradle Kotlin script?

tasks.jar { manifest.attributes["Main-Class"] = "com.example.MyMainClass" val dependencies = configurations .runtimeClasspath .get() .map(::zipTree) // OR .map { zipTree(it) } from(dependencies) duplicatesStrategy = DuplicatesStrategy.EXCLUDE }

Mahozad · Accepted Answer · 2023-12-16 08:50:18Z

Here I provide solutions for Kotlin DSL (build.gradle.kts).
Note that the first 3 methods modify the existing Jar task of Gradle.

Method 1: Placing library files beside the result JAR

This method does not need application or any other plugins.

tasks.jar { manifest.attributes["Main-Class"] = "com.example.MyMainClass" manifest.attributes["Class-Path"] = configurations .runtimeClasspath .get() .joinToString(separator = " ") { file -> "libs/${file.name}" } }

Note that Java requires us to use relative URLs for the Class-Path attribute. So, we cannot use the absolute path of Gradle dependencies (which is also prone to being changed and not available on other systems). If you want to use absolute paths, maybe this workaround will work.

Create the JAR with the following command:

./gradlew jar

The result JAR will be created in build/libs/ directory by default.

After creating your JAR, copy your library JARs in libs/ sub-directory of where you put your result JAR. Make sure your library JAR files do not contain space in their file name (their file name should match the one specified by ${file.name} variable above in the task).

Method 2: Embedding the libraries in the result JAR (fat or uber JAR)

This method too does not need any Gradle plugin.

tasks.jar { manifest.attributes["Main-Class"] = "com.example.MyMainClass" val dependencies = configurations .runtimeClasspath .get() .map(::zipTree) // OR .map { zipTree(it) } from(dependencies) duplicatesStrategy = DuplicatesStrategy.EXCLUDE }

Creating the JAR is exactly the same as the previous method.

Method 3: Using the Shadow plugin (to create a fat or uber JAR)

plugins { id("com.github.johnrengelman.shadow") version "6.0.0" } // Shadow task depends on Jar task, so these configs are reflected for Shadow as well tasks.jar { manifest.attributes["Main-Class"] = "org.example.MainKt" }

Create the JAR with this command:

./gradlew shadowJar

See Shadow documentations for more information about configuring the plugin.

Method 4: Creating a new task (instead of modifying the `Jar` task)

tasks.create("MyFatJar", Jar::class) { group = "my tasks" // OR, for example, "build" description = "Creates a self-contained fat JAR of the application that can be run." manifest.attributes["Main-Class"] = "com.example.MyMainClass" duplicatesStrategy = DuplicatesStrategy.EXCLUDE val dependencies = configurations .runtimeClasspath .get() .map(::zipTree) from(dependencies) with(tasks.jar.get()) }

Running the created JAR

java -jar my-artifact.jar

The above solutions were tested with:

Java 17
Gradle 7.1 (which uses Kotlin 1.4.31 for .kts build scripts)

See the official Gradle documentation for creating uber (fat) JARs.

For information about manifests, see Oracle Java Documentation: Working with Manifest files.

For difference between tasks.create() and tasks.register() see this post.

Note that your resource files will be included in the JAR file automatically (assuming they were placed in /src/main/resources/ directory or any custom directory set as resources root in the build file). To access a resource file in your application, use this code (note the / at the start of names):

Kotlin

val vegetables = MyClass::class.java.getResource("/vegetables.txt").readText() // Alternative ways: // val vegetables = object{}.javaClass.getResource("/vegetables.txt").readText() // val vegetables = MyClass::class.java.getResourceAsStream("/vegetables.txt").reader().readText() // val vegetables = object{}.javaClass.getResourceAsStream("/vegetables.txt").reader().readText()

Java

var stream = MyClass.class.getResource("/vegetables.txt").openStream(); // OR var stream = MyClass.class.getResourceAsStream("/vegetables.txt"); var reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(stream)); var vegetables = reader.lines().collect(Collectors.joining("\n"));

I wish I could get method 1) to work on a newer version of gradle. It is nice to retain the helper jars without flattening everything.

LiuWenbin_NO. · Accepted Answer · 2020-05-11 04:47:27Z

5

from { configurations.runtimeClasspath.collect { it.isDirectory() ? it : zipTree(it) } }

This line is essential to me.

answered May 11, 2020 at 4:47

LiuWenbin_NO.

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1 Comment

Pavel Orekhov Over a year ago

how to drop duplicates here?

gunslingor · Accepted Answer · 2020-08-09 23:47:27Z

Kotlin 1.3.72 & JVM plugin, Gradle 6.5.1

Syntax is changing quickly in all these platforms

tasks { compileKotlin { kotlinOptions.jvmTarget = "1.8" } compileTestKotlin { kotlinOptions.jvmTarget = "1.8" } val main = sourceSets.main.get() //TODO register<Jar>("buildFatJar") { group = "app-backend" dependsOn(build) // shouldRunAfter(parent!!.tasks["prepCopyJsBundleToKtor"]) -> This is for incorporating KotlinJS gradle subproject resulting js file. manifest { attributes["Main-Class"] = "com.app.app.BackendAppKt" } from(configurations.compileClasspath.get().files.map { if (it.isDirectory) it else zipTree(it) }) with(jar.get() as CopySpec) archiveBaseName.set("${project.name}-fat") } }

garawaa garawaa · Accepted Answer · 2022-08-25 08:56:41Z

mainClassName = 'Main' sourceSets { main { java { srcDirs 'src/main/java', 'src/main/resources' } } } jar{ manifest { attributes( "Main-Class": "$mainClassName", ) } from { configurations.runtimeClasspath.collect { it.isDirectory() ? it : zipTree(it) } } exclude 'META-INF/*.RSA', 'META-INF/*.SF','META-INF/*.DSA' duplicatesStrategy = DuplicatesStrategy.EXCLUDE dependsOn ('dependencies') }

cloudcop · Accepted Answer · 2025-05-27 17:12:36Z

task.register jar fatjar('fatjar': jar { manifest { attributes'main-Class': "com.app.app.BackendAppKt" } archiveBaseName.rootProjectName + "all" archiveVersion = deloymentVersion duplicatesStrategy = DuplicatesStrategy.EXCLUDE zip64 = true from { configurations.runtimeClasspath.collect { it.isDirectory() ? it : zipTree(it) }} } with jar }

You may end up getting some error

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Method 1: Placing library files beside the result JAR

Method 2: Embedding the libraries in the result JAR (fat or uber JAR)

Method 3: Using the Shadow plugin (to create a fat or uber JAR)

Method 4: Creating a new task (instead of modifying the `Jar` task)

Running the created JAR

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Method 1: Placing library files beside the result JAR

Method 2: Embedding the libraries in the result JAR (fat or uber JAR)

Method 3: Using the Shadow plugin (to create a fat or uber JAR)

Method 4: Creating a new task (instead of modifying the Jar task)

Running the created JAR

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Method 4: Creating a new task (instead of modifying the `Jar` task)