Recaps of three Gradle talks from KotlinConf 2026 in Munich. Paul Merlin traces the evolution from Groovy to Kotlin DSL to Declarative Gradle, explaining the problem each solved. Stefan Wolf covers 10 Gradle best practices for Kotlin developers, split between build organization (Kotlin DSL, version catalogs, convention plugins) and optimization (local/remote build cache, configuration cache, KSP over kapt, modularization). Marcin Mycek demos the experimental Kotlin ecosystem plugin for Declarative Gradle, which uses .dcl files and high-level building blocks like kotlinJvmApplication, with support for mixed builds alongside existing scripts.
Table of contents
Table of ContentsIntroductionA Tale of the Gradle DSLs — Paul Merlin #10 Gradle Best Practices Every Kotlin Developer Should Know — Stefan Wolf #A First Look at the Kotlin Ecosystem Plugin for Declarative Gradle — Marcin Mycek #Discuss391 Impressions