Apache Grails IntelliJ Plugin

IntelliJ IDEA plugin for the Apache Grails framework: GSP language support (parsing, highlighting, completion, refactoring), Grails project structure and navigation, run configurations, taglib/domain-class support, and integrations for i18n, coverage, Hibernate, Maven, and language injection.

This codebase was originally developed by JetBrains s.r.o. and imported from JetBrains/intellij-obsolete-plugins.

Requirements

To run the plugin:

IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate 2026.2+ (sinceBuild 262). The plugin depends on Ultimate-only functionality (JavaEE, Spring, database, microservices) and will not load in Community.

To build the plugin:

	Version	Notes
JDK	Liberica 25 (`25.0.3-librca`)	Pinned in `.sdkmanrc`. The exact JDK matters — see reproducible builds.
Gradle	9.6.1	Pinned in `.sdkmanrc`. Only needed to bootstrap the wrapper; otherwise use `./gradlew`.
Git	any recent	To clone the repository.
Disk	~10 GB free	The IntelliJ Platform and bundled plugins are downloaded into `.intellijPlatform` and the Gradle cache.
Memory	8 GB+	The build runs a 4 GB Gradle daemon (set in `gradle.properties`).

The build needs network access to Maven Central and the JetBrains IntelliJ Platform repositories. The grails-rt, grails-compiler-patch, and jps-plugin modules target older bytecode levels (Java 8/11) but still build with the JDK above.

Building from source

These steps take you from an empty machine to an installable plugin ZIP. They cover a clone of this repository; if you are starting from a released source distribution instead, see INSTALL — the only difference is that step 3 is mandatory there.

1. Get the source

git clone https://github.com/apache/grails-intellij-plugin.git
cd grails-intellij-plugin

2. Install the JDK and Gradle

The required versions are pinned in .sdkmanrc. The simplest way to get exactly those versions is SDKMAN!:

curl -s "https://get.sdkman.io" | bash     # if SDKMAN! is not installed yet
source "$HOME/.sdkman/bin/sdkman-init.sh"

sdk env install    # reads .sdkmanrc, installs the pinned JDK + Gradle
sdk env            # selects them for the current shell

If you would rather not use SDKMAN!, install the same versions by any means you prefer — for example download Liberica JDK 25 and Gradle 9.6.1 manually — then make sure java -version and gradle --version report them:

export JAVA_HOME=/path/to/liberica-jdk-25
export PATH="$JAVA_HOME/bin:/path/to/gradle-9.6.1/bin:$PATH"

Building with a different JDK will usually work, but the artifacts will not be bit-for-bit reproducible against an official release.

3. Bootstrap the Gradle Wrapper

From a git clone this step is not needed — gradlew and the wrapper jar are checked in, so skip straight to step 4.

From a source distribution it is required. ASF source releases may not contain compiled binaries, so the wrapper jar is stripped out and must be regenerated once using the local Gradle from step 2:

cd gradle-bootstrap
gradle bootstrap
cd ..

gradle-bootstrap is a tiny standalone Gradle build whose only job is to run the wrapper task at the version named in .sdkmanrc and copy the results (gradlew, gradlew.bat, gradle/wrapper/) up to the source root. After it runs, use ./gradlew for everything below.

4. Build the plugin

./gradlew buildPlugin

The plugin ZIP is written to plugin/build/distributions/ and can be installed in IntelliJ IDEA via Settings > Plugins > ⚙ > Install Plugin from Disk.

The first build downloads the IntelliJ Platform (IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate) and the bundled plugins it compiles against. Expect it to take a while and pull down several GB; subsequent builds reuse the .intellijPlatform cache.

To build a specific version rather than the default in gradle.properties:

./gradlew buildPlugin -Pversion=262.0.1

5. Verify the build (optional)

./gradlew check                  # compile and run the test suite
./gradlew verifyPlugin           # IntelliJ Plugin Verifier
./gradlew rat                    # Apache RAT license audit
./gradlew runIde                 # launch a sandbox IDE with the plugin installed
./gradlew testCodeCoverageReport # aggregate JaCoCo coverage report
./gradlew ossIndexAudit          # Sonatype OSS Index vulnerability scan (needs SONATYPE_GUIDE_TOKEN)

To confirm the build is reproducible, see RELEASE.md.

Releasing

The release process, artifact verification, and reproducibility requirements are documented in RELEASE.md.

License

Apache License, Version 2.0 — see LICENSE and NOTICE.