February 2026

Welcome to the February 2026 Gradle Build Tool newsletter! This month, we’re exploring the frontiers of build performance, from community experiments in reinforcement learning to test reports right in your IDE. Plus a sneak peek at Gradle 9.4.0.

From the community

New posts

• Reinforcement Learning - Iñaki Villar explores using reinforcement learning to optimize Gradle builds

• Benchmarking Gradle - Profiling configuration times with Aurimas Liutikas and Márton Braun

• Spray and Pray - How broad Spotless target patterns can dramatically slow configuration time

• GMM Wiki - A community wiki to document Gradle metadata attributes

Modernizing Apache Kafka's CI Webinar

Ever wonder how a massive project like Apache Kafka keeps its builds fast and reliable? 

On March 12, join Apache Kafka PMC David Arthur to see how Kafka modernized its CI pipeline using Develocity and GitHub Actions. Learn how they tackled flaky tests, optimized build times, and improved developer productivity at scale.