How to trigger the minimal task on Gradle to run a

Question

I'm creating a compile-time annotation processor to generate some code on Android.

To trigger the annotation processor I'm using the android-apt plugin from hvisser https://bitbucket.org/hvisser/android-apt/overview

At the moment, on every change I do on my Processor extends AbstractProcessor I have to run a full /.gradlew clean build to see the results, and that is kinda of a slow process, even for a tiny sample project.

So my question, is there any of the gradlew tasks I could use to trigger the annotation processor?

The output from my current ./gradlew tasks is:

------------------------------------------------------------
All tasks runnable from root project
------------------------------------------------------------

Android tasks
-------------
androidDependencies - Displays the Android dependencies of the project.
signingReport - Displays the signing info for each variant.

Build tasks
-----------
assemble - Assembles the outputs of this project.
assembleAndroidTest - Assembles all the Test applications.
assembleDebug - Assembles all Debug builds.
assembleDebugAndroidTest - Assembles the android (on device) tests for the Debug build.
assembleRelease - Assembles all Release builds.
build - Assembles and tests this project.
buildDependents - Assembles and tests this project and all projects that depend on it.
buildNeeded - Assembles and tests this project and all projects it depends on.
classes - Assembles classes 'main'.
clean - Deletes the build directory.
compileDebugAndroidTestSources
compileDebugSources
compileDebugUnitTestSources
compileReleaseSources
compileReleaseUnitTestSources
jar - Assembles a jar archive containing the main classes.
mockableAndroidJar - Creates a version of android.jar that's suitable for unit tests.
testClasses - Assembles classes 'test'.

Build Setup tasks
-----------------
init - Initializes a new Gradle build. [incubating]
wrapper - Generates Gradle wrapper files. [incubating]

Documentation tasks
-------------------
javadoc - Generates Javadoc API documentation for the main source code.

Help tasks
----------
components - Displays the components produced by root project 'Decorator'. [incubating]
dependencies - Displays all dependencies declared in root project 'Decorator'.
dependencyInsight - Displays the insight into a specific dependency in root project 'Decorator'.
help - Displays a help message.
projects - Displays the sub-projects of root project 'Decorator'.
properties - Displays the properties of root project 'Decorator'.
tasks - Displays the tasks runnable from root project 'Decorator' (some of the displayed tasks may belong to subprojects).

Install tasks
-------------
installDebug - Installs the Debug build.
installDebugAndroidTest - Installs the android (on device) tests for the Debug build.
uninstallAll - Uninstall all applications.
uninstallDebug - Uninstalls the Debug build.
uninstallDebugAndroidTest - Uninstalls the android (on device) tests for the Debug build.
uninstallRelease - Uninstalls the Release build.

Verification tasks
------------------
check - Runs all checks.
connectedAndroidTest - Installs and runs instrumentation tests for all flavors on connected devices.
connectedAndroidTestDebug - Installs and runs the tests for Debug build on connected devices.
connectedCheck - Runs all device checks on currently connected devices.
deviceAndroidTest - Installs and runs instrumentation tests using all Device Providers.
deviceCheck - Runs all device checks using Device Providers and Test Servers.
lint - Runs lint on all variants.
lintDebug - Runs lint on the Debug build.
lintRelease - Runs lint on the Release build.
test - Runs the unit tests.
testDebug - Run unit tests for the debug build.
testRelease - Run unit tests for the release build.

Other tasks
-----------
jarDebugClasses
jarReleaseClasses

Answer 1

Source generation happens when you compile. So running gradlew cleanCompileDebugSources compileDebugSources is what you need. This is the same was what Android Studio is running when you make your project from the build menu.

If you are developing your annotation processor as part of your project, you can use the processor option in android-apt without needing to package your processor project. This is assuming you have your processor module as a apt project(':myprocessor') dependency (compile will also work).

apt {
    processor "my.class.name"
}