How/when to generate Gradle wrapper files?

1. You generate it once, and again when you'd like to change the version of Gradle you use in the project. There's no need to generate is so often. Here are the docs. Just add wrapper task to build.gradle file and run this task to get the wrapper structure.

   Mind that you need to have Gradle installed to generate a wrapper. Great tool for managing g-ecosystem artifacts is SDKMAN!. To generate a gradle wrapper, add the following piece of code to build.gradle file:

   task wrapper(type: Wrapper) {
      gradleVersion = '2.0' //version required
   }
   

   and run:

   gradle wrapper
   

   task. Add the resulting files to SCM (e.g. git) and from now all developers will have the same version of Gradle when using Gradle Wrapper.

   With Gradle 2.4 (or higher) you can set up a wrapper without adding a dedicated task:

   gradle wrapper --gradle-version 2.3
   

   or

   gradle wrapper --gradle-distribution-url https://myEnterpriseRepository:7070/gradle/distributions/gradle-2.3-bin.zip
   

   All the details can be found here

From Gradle 3.1 --distribution-type option can be also used. The options are binary and all and bin. all additionally contains source code and documentation. all is also better when IDE is used, so the editor works better. Drawback is the build may last longer (need to download more data, pointless on CI server) and it will take more space.

2. These are Gradle Wrapper files. You need to generate them once (for a particular version) and add to version control. If you need to change the version of Gradle Wrapper, change the version in build.gradle see (1.) and regenerate the files.

3. Give a detailed example. Such file may have multiple purposes: multi-module project, responsibility separation, slightly modified script, etc.

4. settings.gradle is responsible rather for structure of the project (modules, names, etc), while, gradle.properties is used for project's and Gradle's external details (version, command line arguments -XX, properties etc.)

Generating the Gradle Wrapper

Project build gradle

// Top-level build file where you can add configuration options common to all sub-projects/modules.

// Running 'gradle wrapper' will generate gradlew - Getting gradle wrapper working and using it will save you a lot of pain.
task wrapper(type: Wrapper) {
    gradleVersion = '2.2' 
}

// Look Google doesn't use Maven Central, they use jcenter now.
buildscript {
    repositories {
        jcenter()
    }
    dependencies {
        classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:1.0.1'

        // NOTE: Do not place your application dependencies here; they belong
        // in the individual module build.gradle files
    }
}

allprojects {
    repositories {
        jcenter()
    }
}

Then at the command-line run

gradle wrapper

If you're missing gradle on your system install it or the above won't work. On a Mac it is best to install via Homebrew.

brew install gradle

After you have successfully run the wrapper task and generated gradlew, don't use your system gradle. It will save you a lot of headaches.

./gradlew assemble

What about the gradle plugin seen above?

com.android.tools.build:gradle:1.0.1

You should set the version to be the latest and you can check the tools page and edit the version accordingly.

See what Android Studio generates

The addition of gradle and the newest Android Studio have changed project layout dramatically. If you have an older project I highly recommend creating a clean one with the latest Android Studio and see what Google considers the standard project.

Android Studio has facilities for importing older projects which can also help.

As of Gradle 2.4, you can use gradle wrapper --gradle-version X.X to configure a specific version of the Gradle wrapper, without adding any tasks to your build.gradle file. The next time you use the wrapper, it will download the appropriate Gradle distribution to match.