Gradle

Learn how to build and run XLT test suites using Gradle.

Integrating XLT into a Gradle project

XLT supports Gradle as a build tool for your test suite. You need the following entries in your build.gradle file:

Plugins

Include the following in your build.gradle file to use Gradle’s Java plugin, which adds basic compilation, testing, and bundling capabilities for Java projects:

plugins {
    id 'java'
    // or some other Gradle plugin for JVM language, such as 'java-library' or 'application'
}

Adding Repository Location

XLT is published to Maven Central. To integrate XLT into your Gradle project, copy and paste the following into your build.gradle file:

/* Add Maven Central repository information */

repositories {
    maven {
        url = uri('https://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2/')
    }
}

Dependency Scopes

XLT is provided at runtime by the container, so it does not need to be packaged with your project build, thereby reducing the upload size when starting a load test.

Maven has a provided scope for dependencies that need to be present on your classpath at compile time but don’t need to be packaged, as they are already provided at runtime (e.g., by the JDK or web container). However, since there is no such equivalent in Gradle, you’ll have to define it yourself in your build.gradle file as follows:

configurations {
    provided
}

sourceSets {
    main {
         // Add dependencies of type 'provided' to compile classpath
        compileClasspath += configurations.provided
    }
}

(If your test suite’s code is organized differently, for example, when your XLT tests reside in src/test/java, you may also have to update the compile classpath of the appropriate source set, e.g., test.)

Adding XLT to your Project

Now that Gradle knows the configuration named provided, we can add XLT as a provided dependency:

dependencies {
    provided 'com.xceptance:xlt:8.2.0'
}

Copying Dependencies

If your test suite uses any external dependencies or libraries, they must be copied to an appropriate location within your test suite where XLT can find them, ideally as part of the compile or package step. XLT does not build the project on the agent machines and, therefore, does not resolve dependencies there. It simply uploads the test suite to the agent, including the contents of the build directory.

To automatically copy all non-provided dependencies to build/dependency at compile time, add the following snippet to your build.gradle:

tasks.register('copyDeps', Copy) {
    into layout.buildDirectory.dir('dependency')
    from configurations.testRuntimeClasspath, configurations.runtimeClasspath
}

tasks.withType(JavaCompile) {
    // Configure Java compiler (source file encoding and JavaSE release)
    options.encoding = 'UTF-8'
    options.release = 11
    // Depend on 'copyDeps' task such that dependencies are copied automatically
    dependsOn('copyDeps')
}

This ensures that all dependencies are present when the test suite is uploaded to the agent machines.

Gradle Build Steps

If you run a load test for your Gradle test suite in XTC, the following build steps will be executed:

gradle classes testClasses

We recommend running the same steps on your local machine to check if your test suite builds correctly and all necessary dependencies are copied into the build directory.

Last modified June 5, 2025