am I right assuming that

implementation(kotlin("stdlib-jdk8"))

will grab the kotlin version specified by

plugins {
    kotlin("jvm") version ..
}

short answer: effectively, yes (if no explicit version is set in other dependencies https://kotlinlang.org/docs/gradle-configure-project.html#versions-alignment-of-transitive-dependencies)

yes. You could also override version via

kotlin.coreLibrarariesVersion

what actually happens under the hood is that https://gradle.github.io/kotlin-dsl-docs/api/org.gradle.kotlin.dsl/org.gradle.api.artifacts.dsl.-dependency-handler/kotlin.html adds the dependency with a null version, then https://github.com/Jetbrains/kotlin/blob/master/libraries/tools/kotlin-gradle-plugin/src/common/kotlin/org/jetbrains/kotlin/gradle/internal/KotlinDependenciesManagement.kt#L61 replaces null versions in the

org.jetbrains.kotlin

package with

kotlin.coreLibrariesVersion

that doesn't look quite robust, but anyway

I believe it's done this way because kotlin-dsl in Gradle shouldn't know particulars about the Kotlin Gradle plugin, which is external

Note that

kotlin-stdlib-jdk8

is the same as

kotlin-stdlib

since Kotlin 1.8.0

yeah, I recalled it once I read about it again in the docs

Also

implementation(kotlin("stdlib"))

is actually the same as doing nothing because KGP will add it for you by default

btw KGP adds stdlib dependency in

api

Ah right!!

btw KGP adds stdlib dependency in

api

sorry, but why was decided that instead of

implementation

?

sorry, but why was decided that instead of

implementation

?

Just guessing: to be more compatible with Maven consumers. I half-remember something about the API scope being more akin to how Maven dependencies are exposed between projects.

I'd vote that it's what you want in 99.99% of the cases. It's really hard to hide all

kotlin-stdlib

symbols from it's public API.

kotlin.Unit

doesn't usually show up unless you're exposing

() -> Unit

lambdas (in which case you're definitely using

kotlin.Function*

function types so it is part of your API regardless of

Unit

)

doesn't the Kotlin compiiler see

kotlin.collections.List

though?

in the

kotlin.Metadata

yes, but that's opaque to Java (and annotation classes do not need to exist at runtime)

yes but

api

is also for Kotlin consumers

dont give out strange ideas, Martin 🙈

kotlinApi(stdlib)

is not useful at all. either it's a compatible version of stdlib, in which case the consumer already has it, or it isn't compatible with the consumer's compiler, in which case it'll fail regardless of declared transitive dependencies

fair enough