The JaCoCo Plugin

Getting Started

To get started, apply the JaCoCo plugin to the project you want to calculate code coverage for.

Example 1. Applying the JaCoCo plugin

GroovyKotlin

build.gradle

plugins {
    id 'jacoco'
}

If the Java plugin is also applied to your project, a new task named jacocoTestReport is created that depends on the test task. The report is available at $buildDir/reports/jacoco/test. By default, a HTML report is generated.

Configuring the JaCoCo Plugin

The JaCoCo plugin adds a project extension named jacoco of type JacocoPluginExtension, which allows configuring defaults for JaCoCo usage in your build.

Example 2. Configuring JaCoCo plugin settings

GroovyKotlin

build.gradle

jacoco {
    toolVersion = "0.8.3"
    reportsDir = file("$buildDir/customJacocoReportDir")
}

Table 1. Gradle defaults for JaCoCo properties
Property	Gradle default
reportsDir	`$buildDir/reports/jacoco`

JaCoCo Report configuration

The JacocoReport task can be used to generate code coverage reports in different formats. It implements the standard Gradle type Reporting and exposes a report container of type JacocoReportsContainer.

Example 3. Configuring test task

GroovyKotlin

build.gradle

jacocoTestReport {
    reports {
        xml.enabled false
        csv.enabled false
        html.destination file("${buildDir}/jacocoHtml")
    }
}

Enforcing code coverage metrics

✨	This feature requires the use of JaCoCo version 0.6.3 or higher.

The JacocoCoverageVerification task can be used to verify if code coverage metrics are met based on configured rules. Its API exposes the method JacocoCoverageVerification.violationRules(org.gradle.api.Action) which is used as main entry point for configuring rules. Invoking any of those methods returns an instance of JacocoViolationRulesContainer providing extensive configuration options. The build fails if any of the configured rules are not met. JaCoCo only reports the first violated rule.

Code coverage requirements can be specified for a project as a whole, for individual files, and for particular JaCoCo-specific types of coverage, e.g., lines covered or branches covered. The following example describes the syntax.

Example 4. Configuring violation rules

GroovyKotlin

build.gradle

jacocoTestCoverageVerification {
    violationRules {
        rule {
            limit {
                minimum = 0.5
            }
        }

        rule {
            enabled = false
            element = 'CLASS'
            includes = ['org.gradle.*']

            limit {
                counter = 'LINE'
                value = 'TOTALCOUNT'
                maximum = 0.3
            }
        }
    }
}

build.gradle.kts

tasks.jacocoTestCoverageVerification {
    violationRules {
        rule {
            limit {
                minimum = "0.5".toBigDecimal()
            }
        }

        rule {
            enabled = false
            element = "CLASS"
            includes = listOf("org.gradle.*")

            limit {
                counter = "LINE"
                value = "TOTALCOUNT"
                maximum = "0.3".toBigDecimal()
            }
        }
    }
}

✨	The code for this example can be found at `samples/testing/jacoco/quickstart` in the ‘-all’ distribution of Gradle.

The JacocoCoverageVerification task is not a task dependency of the check task provided by the Java plugin. There is a good reason for it. The task is currently not incremental as it doesn’t declare any outputs. Any violation of the declared rules would automatically result in a failed build when executing the check task. This behavior might not be desirable for all users. Future versions of Gradle might change the behavior.

JaCoCo specific task configuration

The JaCoCo plugin adds a JacocoTaskExtension extension to all tasks of type Test. This extension allows the configuration of the JaCoCo specific properties of the test task.

Example 5. Configuring test task

GroovyKotlin

build.gradle

test {
    jacoco {
        destinationFile = file("$buildDir/jacoco/jacocoTest.exec")
        classDumpDir = file("$buildDir/jacoco/classpathdumps")
    }
}

build.gradle.kts

tasks.test {
    extensions.configure(JacocoTaskExtension::class) {
        destinationFile = file("$buildDir/jacoco/jacocoTest.exec")
        classDumpDir = file("$buildDir/jacoco/classpathdumps")
    }
}

✨	Tasks configured for running with the JaCoCo agent delete the destination file for the execution data when the task starts executing. This ensures that no stale coverage data is present in the execution data.

Default values of the JaCoCo Task extension

test {
    jacoco {
        enabled = true
        destinationFile = file("$buildDir/jacoco/$name.exec")
        includes = []
        excludes = []
        excludeClassLoaders = []
        includeNoLocationClasses = false
        sessionId = "<auto-generated value>"
        dumpOnExit = true
        classDumpDir = null
        output = Output.FILE
        address = "localhost"
        port = 6300
        jmx = false
    }
}

While all tasks of type Test are automatically enhanced to provide coverage information when the java plugin has been applied, any task that implements JavaForkOptions can be enhanced by the JaCoCo plugin. That is, any task that forks Java processes can be used to generate coverage information.

For example you can configure your build to generate code coverage using the application plugin.

Example 6. Using application plugin to generate code coverage data

GroovyKotlin

build.gradle

plugins {
    id 'application'
    id 'jacoco'
}

application {
    mainClassName = 'org.gradle.MyMain'
}

jacoco {
    applyTo run
}

task applicationCodeCoverageReport(type:JacocoReport) {
    executionData run
    sourceSets sourceSets.main
}

build.gradle.kts

plugins {
    application
    jacoco
}

application {
    mainClassName = "org.gradle.MyMain"
}

jacoco {
    applyTo(tasks.run.get())
}

tasks.register<JacocoReport>("applicationCodeCoverageReport") {
    executionData(tasks.run.get())
    sourceSets(sourceSets.main.get())
}

✨	The code for this example can be found at `samples/testing/jacoco/application` in the ‘-all’ distribution of Gradle.

Coverage reports generated by applicationCodeCoverageReport

.
└── build
    ├── jacoco
    │   └── run.exec
    └── reports
        └── jacoco
            └── applicationCodeCoverageReport
                └── html
                    └── index.html

Tasks

For projects that also apply the Java Plugin, the JaCoCo plugin automatically adds the following tasks:

jacocoTestReport — JacocoReport: Generates code coverage report for the test task.
jacocoTestCoverageVerification — JacocoCoverageVerification: Verifies code coverage metrics based on specified rules for the test task.

Dependency management

The JaCoCo plugin adds the following dependency configurations:

Table 2. JaCoCo plugin - dependency configurations
Name	Meaning
`jacocoAnt`	The JaCoCo Ant library used for running the `JacocoReport`, `JacocoMerge` and `JacocoCoverageVerification` tasks.
`jacocoAgent`	The JaCoCo agent library used for instrumenting the code under test.