Dependency validation fails on Gradle plugins

Description

Using the java-gradle-plugin adds gradleApi() as an api (or compileOnlyApi in Gradle 9.4) dependency.

This is problematic because:

• gradle-api contains multi-release bycode in unexpected locations which makes the class file version verification fail
• It uses the version of Gradle you're using to build in your compile dependencies while you usually want conservative libraries with liberal tooling.

Workaround:

set org.gradle.unsafe.suppress-gradle-api=true in your gradle.properties

echo 'org.gradle.unsafe.suppress-gradle-api=true' >> gradle.properties

Add the correct minimum version of Gradle you want to support:

dependencies {
  compileOnlyApi("org.gradle.experimental:gradle-public-api-internal:$gradleVersion")
}

Or if if gradle-public-api-internal is not published for the version of Gradle you're targeting, you may use the Nokee redistributed artifacts:

dependencies {
  compileOnlyApi("dev.gradleplugins:gradle-api:$gradleVersion")
}

Start by reproducing dependency validation for a project using the java-gradle-plugin, then inspect how gradleApi() and the suppress-gradle-api setting affect validation. Compare the behavior with the documented compileOnlyApi alternatives and verify that supported Gradle versions no longer trigger the reported class-file validation failure.