Gradle avoid generating classes directory

Question

My gradle configuration is such that all the dependencies and application jars go in the libs folder. The build directory has following sub-directories classes , dependency-cache, libs , resources and tmp . I want the gradle to only generate libs and resources and not the others. What gradle configuration is required to do this?

My current gradle file:

plugins {
    id 'java'
}

sourceCompatibility = 1.8

task copyToLib(type: Copy) {
    into libsDir
    from configurations.runtime
}

jar {
    dependsOn copyToLib
    manifest {
        attributes(
                'Main-Class': 'ApiTesting'
        )
    }
}


repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}

dependencies {
    ...
}

Answer 1

The initial reaction to your question is: why are these extra folders in build a problem?

But thinking more about it, the best answer is: do not fight the tool.

Instead of preventing it to work according to conventions, you should design your downstream tasks to not care. If you need a very special format for further consumption, either inside or outside the build, it is trivial to add a Copy or Sync task that will create that structure from the regular build output into a tailored custom location. Which can be yet another build subfolder.