using dependencyLock and propertiesFile providers together

[gracew]

I primarily use nebula-dependency-recommender on multi-project repositories and have found the properties file provider to be really helpful for consolidating versions in a single place. I've recently been exploring using the gradle-dependency-lock-plugin so that I can upgrade dependencies regularly.

However, it appears that in order to gain both benefits, I need to define the extension in an if/else block as follows:

if (System.env.UPDATE_LOCKS == "true" /* can equivalently check a gradle property */) {
    dependencyRecommendations {
        propertiesFile file: project.rootProject.file('versions.props')
    }
} else {
    dependencyRecommendations {
        dependencyLock file: project.file('dependencies.lock')
    }
}

I'm looking for suggestions on a better way to achieve this behavior. I looked through some repositories in the Netflix org but it appears that most repositories inline dependency versions, even for multi-project repositories.

One idea is to define my own plugin, with an extension wrapping the dependencyRecommendations block:

generateLocks {
    dependencyRecommendations {
        propertiesFile file: project.rootProject.file('versions.props')
    }
}

The plugin would then set the actual dependencyRecommendations extension to a convention-based lock file location in most cases, and to the specified providers if a certain environment variable/gradle property is set.

[jmcampanini]

@DanielThomas any thoughts?