It doesn't seem possible to use the Android Gradle plugins with Gradle's new Version Catalogs featur...

# gradle

[darkmoon_uk]

It doesn't seem possible to use the Android Gradle plugins with Gradle's new Version Catalogs feature?
• Not allowed to have a version-less plugin declaration in the toml file
• Need to put the plugin on the class-path because it's not found with ID alone (e.g:`"com.android.application"`)
• Gradle refuses version specification when plugin is already on the classpath
Catch 22!? Is anyone declaring the com.android.application / library plugin with Version Catalogs successfully?

[Zac Sweers]

we’re using it just fine. This is pretty in-actionable without more details (AGP version? why would you not have a version in the toml declaration? etc) or a public repro case

[hfhbd]

I don't use the version catalog, but AGP > 7 finally supports Gradle Metadata. So there is no need for the build script and you can apply the AGP plugin in the plugins block, like every plugin:

plugins {
    id("com.android.application") version "7.0.4"
    kotlin("android") version "1.6.10"
}

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
    google()
}

And you should use Gradle 7.4, which allows you to apply a plugin in a subproject with the same version defined in the root project, which is done by the version catalog feature under the hood: https://docs.gradle.org/current/release-notes.html

[Vampire]

And even with AGP <7 you don't need the buildscript block but can simply do the id=>dependency mapping in the settings script.