--- title: From Source to Running JVM: How Gradle Builds Your Java... description: A deep dive into what happens when you run `gradle build` on a Java project. Covers Gradle's three build phases (initialization, configuration, execution), the... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/from-source-to-running-jvm-how-gradle-builds-your-java-application-5aezz5zdj twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: From Source to Running JVM: How Gradle Builds Your Java Application | daily.dev og:description: A deep dive into what happens when you run `gradle build` on a Java project. Covers Gradle's three build phases (initialization, configuration, execution), the... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/from-source-to-running-jvm-how-gradle-builds-your-java-application-5aezz5zdj og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/5aEzz5zDJ.png og:image:alt: From Source to Running JVM: How Gradle Builds Your Java Application og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # From Source to Running JVM: How Gradle Builds Your Java Application **[Medium](https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js)** · 8 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A deep dive into what happens when you run `gradle build` on a Java project. Covers Gradle's three build phases (initialization, configuration, execution), the Java plugin task graph, and how dependency resolution works across five stages from graph construction to classpath assembly. Also explains what a JAR file actually contains, how the JVM reads and executes it, the classloader hierarchy, lazy class loading, and the Load-Link-Initialize lifecycle. Practical debugging commands for dependency conflicts are included, along with explanations of fat JARs and JIT compilation warm-up. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [A Deep Dive into JVM Start-up](https://daily.dev/posts/a-deep-dive-into-jvm-start-up-y56lgtork) · Baeldung · 9 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#java](https://daily.dev/tags/java), [#jvm](https://daily.dev/tags/jvm), [#gradle](https://daily.dev/tags/gradle) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/from-source-to-running-jvm-how-gradle-builds-your-java-application-5aezz5zdj) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"From Source to Running JVM: How Gradle Builds Your Java Application","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/from-source-to-running-jvm-how-gradle-builds-your-java-application-5aezz5zdj","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/from-source-to-running-jvm-how-gradle-builds-your-java-application-5aezz5zdj"},"datePublished":"2026-07-22T11:32:21.009Z","dateModified":"2026-07-22T11:32:57.462Z","description":"A deep dive into what happens when you run `gradle build` on a Java project. 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