Add annotation processors

This page includes detailed guidance on how to add and configure annotation processors as project dependencies. To learn more about annotation processors, see the entry in Configure dependencies.

If you add annotation processors to your compile classpath, you'll see an error message similar to the following:

Error: Annotation processors must be explicitly declared now.

To resolve this error, add annotation processors to your project by configuring your dependency using annotationProcessor as shown below:

dependencies {
    // Adds libraries defining annotations to only the compile classpath.
    compileOnly("com.google.dagger:dagger:version-number")
    // Adds the annotation processor dependency to the annotation processor classpath.
    annotationProcessor("com.google.dagger:dagger-compiler:version-number")
}

dependencies {
    // Adds libraries defining annotations to only the compile classpath.
    compileOnly 'com.google.dagger:dagger:version-number'
    // Adds the annotation processor dependency to the annotation processor classpath.
    annotationProcessor 'com.google.dagger:dagger-compiler:version-number'
}

Note: Android plugin for Gradle 3.0.0+ no longer supports android-apt plugin.

Pass arguments to annotation processors

If you need to pass arguments to an annotation processor, you can do so using the AnnotationProcessorOptions block in your module's build configuration. For example, if you want to pass primitive data types as key-value pairs, you can use the argument property, as shown below:

android {
    ...
    defaultConfig {
        ...
        javaCompileOptions {
            annotationProcessorOptions {
                arguments += mapOf("key1" to "value1",
                                   "key2" to "value2")
            }
        }
    }
}

android {
    ...
    defaultConfig {
        ...
        javaCompileOptions {
            annotationProcessorOptions {
                argument 'key1', 'value1'
                argument 'key2', 'value2'
            }
        }
    }
}

However, when using Android Gradle plugin 3.2.0 and higher, you need to pass processor arguments that represent files or directories using Gradle's CommandLineArgumentProvider interface.

Using CommandLineArgumentProvider allows you or the annotation processor author to improve the correctness and performance of incremental and cached clean builds by applying incremental build property type annotations to each argument.

For example, the class below implements CommandLineArgumentProvider and annotates each argument for the processor.

class MyArgsProvider(
    // Annotates each directory as either an input or output for the
    // annotation processor.
    @get:InputFiles
    // Using this annotation helps Gradle determine which part of the file path
    // should be considered during up-to-date checks.
    @get:PathSensitive(PathSensitivity.RELATIVE)
    val inputDir: FileCollection,

    @get:OutputDirectory
    val outputDir: File
) : CommandLineArgumentProvider {
    // Specifies each directory as a command line argument for the processor.
    // The Android plugin uses this method to pass the arguments to the
    // annotation processor.

    override fun asArguments(): Iterable<String> {
        // Use the form '-Akey[=value]' to pass your options to the Java compiler.
        return listOf("-AinputDir=${inputDir.singleFile.absolutePath}",
                      "-AoutputDir=${outputDir.absolutePath}")
    }
}

android {...}

class MyArgsProvider implements CommandLineArgumentProvider {

    // Annotates each directory as either an input or output for the
    // annotation processor.
    @InputFiles
    // Using this annotation helps Gradle determine which part of the file path
    // should be considered during up-to-date checks.
    @PathSensitive(PathSensitivity.RELATIVE)
    FileCollection inputDir

    @OutputDirectory
    File outputDir

    // The class constructor sets the paths for the input and output directories.
    MyArgsProvider(FileCollection input, File output) {
        inputDir = input
        outputDir = output
    }

    // Specifies each directory as a command line argument for the processor.
    // The Android plugin uses this method to pass the arguments to the
    // annotation processor.
    @Override
    Iterable<String> asArguments() {
        // Use the form '-Akey[=value]' to pass your options to the Java compiler.
        ["-AinputDir=${inputDir.singleFile.absolutePath}",
         "-AoutputDir=${outputDir.absolutePath}"]
    }
}

android {...}

After you define a class that implements CommandLineArgumentProvider, you need to create an instance and pass it to the Android plugin using the annotationProcessorOptions.compilerArgumentProvider method, as shown below.

// This is in your module's build.gradle file.
android {
    defaultConfig {
        javaCompileOptions {
            annotationProcessorOptions {
                // Creates a new MyArgsProvider object, specifies the input and
                // output paths for the constructor, and passes the object
                // to the Android plugin.
                compilerArgumentProvider(MyArgsProvider(files("input/path"),
                                                          file("output/path")))
            }
        }
    }
}

// This is in your module's build.gradle file.
android {
    defaultConfig {
        javaCompileOptions {
            annotationProcessorOptions {
                // Creates a new MyArgsProvider object, specifies the input and
                // output paths for the constructor, and passes the object
                // to the Android plugin.
                compilerArgumentProvider new MyArgsProvider(files("input/path"),
                                         new File("output/path"))
            }
        }
    }
}

To learn more about how implementing CommandLineArgumentProvider helps improve build performance, read Caching Java projects.

Disable the annotation processor error check

If you have dependencies on the compile classpath that include annotation processors you don't need, you can disable the error check by adding the following to your build.gradle.kts file. Keep in mind, the annotation processors you add to the compile classpath are still not added to the processor classpath.

android {
    ...
    defaultConfig {
        ...
        javaCompileOptions {
            annotationProcessorOptions {
                argument("includeCompileClasspath", "false")
            }
        }
    }
}

android {
    ...
    defaultConfig {
        ...
        javaCompileOptions {
            annotationProcessorOptions {
                includeCompileClasspath false
            }
        }
    }
}

If you use Kotlin and kapt:

android {
    ...
    defaultConfig {
        ...
        kapt {
            includeCompileClasspath = false
        }
    }
}

android {
    ...
    defaultConfig {
        ...
        kapt {
            includeCompileClasspath false
        }
    }
}

If you experience issues after migrating your project's annotation processors to the processor classpath, you can allow annotation processors on the compile classpath by setting includeCompileClasspath to true. However, setting this property to true is not recommended, and the option to do so will be removed in a future update of the Android plugin.