Two related core plugins provide Java toolchain support: jvm-toolchains works at the project level, and jvm-toolchain-management works at the settings level. Both are applied automatically in the situations described below, so you rarely apply them by hand.

For the concepts — how a toolchain is selected, provisioned, and used by JVM tasks — see Toolchains for JVM projects. For writing and registering toolchain download repositories, see Toolchain Resolver Plugins.

The jvm-toolchains plugin

The jvm-toolchains plugin (a Plugin<Project>) makes the JavaToolchainService available to a project so that toolchains can be selected and provisioned for JVM tools such as compilation, testing, and execution.

It adds the following extension:

javaToolchains — JavaToolchainService

Used to query for and provision toolchains — for example, to obtain a JavaLauncher, JavaCompiler, or JavadocTool for a specific JavaLanguageVersion.

The JVM language plugins (via the java-base plugin) apply jvm-toolchains automatically, so most builds never apply it directly. Apply it explicitly only when you need the javaToolchains service in a project that does not apply a JVM language plugin:

build.gradle.kts
plugins {
    id("jvm-toolchains")
}
build.gradle
plugins {
    id 'jvm-toolchains'
}

The jvm-toolchain-management plugin

The jvm-toolchain-management plugin (a Plugin<Settings>) adds a jvm block to the settings-level toolchainManagement container, where Java toolchain download repositories are configured:

settings.gradle.kts
toolchainManagement {
    jvm {
        javaRepositories {
            // register toolchain resolver repositories here
        }
    }
}

Toolchain resolver plugins apply jvm-toolchain-management automatically, so you normally do not apply it yourself.

See also